You Could Kill Me With That Smile
by Dusty Bones
Summary: That smile was one of a kind, he had never seen one quite like it before. And it broke his heart that he might not get to see it for very much longer. What's worse, loving what you can't have or what you'll end up losing? one-sided Sokai, Namora, Roxiri
1. Shall I compare Thee to a Summers Day?

**I Don't own anything.**

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1: Shall I Compare Thee to A Summer's Day?

"Good morning sleepy head!" A too-excited-to-be-quiet voice boomed over me, jerking me with not a little force out of my sleep. I jerked myself right off of my twin-sized bed and onto the floor. And I had been having a good dream, too.

"ugh," I gingerly rubbed the new bump on my head. "What is it Kairi?"

She stood up straight, hands on her hips, trying to look pissed at my apparent forgetfulness, but failing miserably.

"Oh, come on! You can't mean that you forgot the most important day of your life?" She broke into a wide, insane grin and plopped down on my vacant bed, bouncing on her knees like a little kid. "Guess!" She encouraged me.

If it had been anyone else, anyone, I would've gotten pissed and kicked them out of my ocean-themed room. But it really wasn't that special, the ocean theme I mean, this whole town was ocean-themed. But anyways. This was Kairi, whose flame red hair and electric blue eyes automatically made me smile. And that had nothing to do with the hugely major crush that I had on her.

"Uh, I give up." I told her without pausing to actually give it any thought. I could barely remember my name at whatever time it was, let alone anything else.

She stopped bouncing and stood over me, holding out a hand to pull me up. "Ok then, I'll give you a small hint!"

"What?" I asked, accepting her offer of help. My butt was sore.

"It the first day of something." She leaned in a whispered loudly in my ear. My ears burned with her face so close.

"Are you drunk?" I raised an eyebrow. It was possible.

That snapped her out of it for a moment. "Uhhh, no." And then she started grinning again. "But I've been planning for this for so long, I can't believe that the day is finally here!"

I silently stared at her. Dark circles lined my eyes and it was dark, apart from the street lights that bled in through my shades. "What day is it?" She actually had me interested now. I mean, besides the whole really hyper thing, this was pretty odd for her. She usually didn't wake up until after 12 on summer vacation. But this was the first...

"Wait, are you excited about summer vacation?" I questioned, falling back onto my bed.

"Finally! You got it, Sora!" She gave me a thumbs up and squealed. "Aren't you excited?"

Uh, no. Actually , all that I wanted to do was go back to sleep at that moment. But her smile was contagious. I laughed, despite myself. "Sure, Kai. But isn't the point of the first day off to sleep until 5 in the afternoon?" I reasoned with perfect logic.

"Nope." She watched as I lay back down. "What, you're not coming with me to the beach?"

"Nope." I repeated her words, albeit with more exhaustion. "Besides, it's raining!" I pointed to my window, where the cracks in my shudders were glistening just enough to give it away.

She went over and jerked the shades up, pouring artificial street-lighting into my room and revealing that I had been right.

"Oh," She said, dejected. As soon as her scarily hyper and happy mood had come, it left. I liked it better when it was there.

I mumbled something, not even sure what I was saying myself. I just wanted sleep. I was usually just as hyper as my red-haired crush, but not before 6. I assumed it was before six.

"Well, now what?" She asked and dropped onto the edge of my bed, laying down sideways on the end of my bed where my feet would be if I hadn't been curled up into a ball. She swung her legs back and forth on the floor and stared at my ceiling.

My crush was on laying on my bed with me. But not on the same end, and not romantically. I wasn't sure if that justified my pounding, beating, bursting heart. And it did feel like it was bursting right out of my chest. My entire body felt on fire, but I tried not to show it by curling up even more and pulling my hot covers over my head, which made me hotter. But she didn't see it.

In fact, she didn't quite seem to be paying much attention to me altogether. But who knows. My perception wasn't too great with the sheets covering my face.

"Sora," She yawned. Finally the fact that it was dark out seemed to be catching up to her.

I answered her after a moment. "Yeah?"

The bed rustled with whatever movement that she was making. "Can we have an adventure this vacation? Like, a real one, not just getting stuck out on the ocean for an afternoon." She was referring to one summer a few years before when she and I had gone out on the ocean in a fishing boat that we had stolen. Figured that the boat had been having motor issues since it had been left less protected than all of the other boats. We had stayed, stranded, for five whole hours before someone came and got us. I remembered that day so well because that had been the day that I had first noticed that my heart beat super fast when Kairi was around. I had realized my crush on that boat. But she hadn't, as far as I knew.

I sighed. "Ok, Kairi. But you have to promise me something, too." I was suddenly feeling bolder. Maybe it was because I was finally coming out of my sleepy fog. Unwillingly, I might add.

"Ok, what?"

Despite myself, I felt my lips pull into a grin, and I pulled my sheets down. Sitting up, I stared at her. She was propped up on one elbow.

"You have give me a kiss and a date by the end of the summer. And it has to be your first kiss of the summer." I felt triumphant then, because I had completely taken her by surprise. My first clue was the fact that her eyes almost popped out of her head, and that it was her turn to fall off of the bed. Which she did.

"A-are you serious?" She choked out, still sitting on the floor.

"Deadly," I maintained my grin. I had no idea how I could let her get the idea that I wanted to kiss her, which I really, really did. It was probably because she would most likely take this as a joke. Maybe I wanted her to take it that way, too.

" really?" She whispered, eyes wide. I wondered if she actually would.

My face broke a little. "Nah, I'm just joking. Lighten up, Kai, I wouldn't do that to you."

She kept string at me for a moment, then stood up, rusting herself off in as non-awkward a way as possible. Which wasn't possible. As usual, I had just said something stupid and ruined the mood. I sat still on my bed, pressing my lips together in a thin line. Stupid me. Stupid.

She turned and looked me in the eyes, only that she wasn't really. And neither was I. "I'll see you later today, I guess." She mumbled, not quite as enthusiastically as when she had first woke me up.

"Ok," I nodded up and down awkwardly. Stupid.

She moved toward the door slower than I'd expect someone to after they had just been hit on by their best guy friend. I tried not to read anything into that. She got to my door, turned the knob, was all but out of my room.

"I'll just ignore this next time that I see you." She decided, letting me in on her chosen tactic. She poked her head back through the door. "Funny joke," And unfortunately, I couldn't tell if she was being serious or not.

As she gently shut my door, I flopped back onto my pillow and groaned miserably. I didn't even want to know how she had gotten into my house.

* * *

My mom was never one to sleep late, no matter what the season. So when I pounded down the stairs, there she was, in the kitchen, making me some frozen waffles. Well, she was going to un-freeze them before she served them to me. That's the kind of good cook that she was. No sarcasm, I swear.

"'Morning mom," I slid into one of the four stools that were positioned around an island. It usually served as our main eating table, our considerably nicer dining room table only being used when important company came over. Which was almost never.

She didn't turn, but responded, "Good morning Sora, I'm in a really big hurry to get to work, unfortunately, so I couldn't make our usual breakfast." She spoke fast like her movements. Apparently, being a florist was harder, busier work than I had ever thought. Who knew.

"It's ok," I reached for the jug of Orange juice that mom had placed on the counter and poured it into a clear glass.

"So what are you going to do today?" Mom made rushed conversation. She always liked to hear about what I was doing, but not in an annoying, "I'm-your-mother-so-I-have-to-know" sort of way. Just a nice sort? I dunno, but I didn't mind telling her.

"Well, Kairi and I were going to go to the beach, but," I glanced outside at the steady down pour of rain. And on the first day of summer, too. "That's probably not going to happen anymore." I shrugged.

"Ok, well don't forget your summer homework. If you get it done now-"

"I don't have to do it all last minute. Ok, mom." I grinned childishly. Parents, they all had the same old scripts.

Smiling, she turned towards me and handed me two non-frozen waffles with whipped cream, thick maple syrup, and pieces of strawberries piled on top. "That's my boy," She winked at me. Leave it to mom to make a cheap waffle look delicious. Told you that I wasn't being sarcastic.

As I was eating the huge sugar pile that was my breakfast, my mom left the kitchen and called back to me, "Now Sora, I don't want you running around in the street, ok? But I know that you know that." Her voice became louder and softer as she gathered the various things that she needed to before she left for her work. "I don't care if you go hang out with Riku or Kairi or whoever, just leave a note if you're going to be gone until after five. And don't forget to clean your room, your cousin is coming this Monday! Love you sweetie! Brush your teeth!" And with that, she left the house to me.

I groaned to myself. Not because of the brushing teeth, I did that anyways. Cavities hurt, you know. Nope, it was because of my cousin or whatever. I hadn't seen him since I was, like, five. And we hadn't exactly gotten along then. And by that I mean that I knocked one of his baby teeth out. It was loose, but still. That's pretty Tough for a five-year-old. I guess.

His Dad was sending him here for the summer because of some sort of business trip, or something. I don't know, but I could only imagine that he was about as happy with it as I was.

But, really, he was taking the guest bedroom, so why did I have to clean my room? Aren't all guys equally messy? It's not like I'm going to let him anywhere near my room anyways. He won't touch anything that I own. Sounds a little childish, sure, but that was my specialty right?

Anyways, I quickly downed the rest of my breakfast and tossed it into the sink. It made a very loud 'clunk' but nothing more, cuz my mom knew better than to use real plates around me. I ran up the stairs, skipping every other one, and grabbed my cell phone in my room. My fingers flew to Kairi in my list of contacts, but I hesitated. Darn me and my stupid mouth, it would probably be awkward. Groaning at my own stupidity, I continued down past Kairi to Riku and pressed 'send'.

I let it ring once twice three times. Did Riku have a girl over or something? Oh wait, never mind, he couldn't get a girl. I chuckled at my rudeness to him in my head but then sighed. It wasn't like I could get a girl, either. But never mind that.

Finally, right before it went to voice mail, Riku picked up.

" What?" I heard the annoyed grumble from the other side.

"Dude, are you dead or something? What took you so long?"

"I never ever... get up before 11 o'clock. It's 9:45."

" Yeah, so? Get up off your butt and enjoy the world! Besides, you never sleep this late." I stated, slouching down in my blue computer chair.

"That was before summer. Call me back in two hours."

And with that, he hung up. Oh well, who needed a grump like him anyways? I mean, who sleeps to eleven?

Flipping my phone shut, I stared at it for a moment, my lips pursed. I had other friends to call, sure, but the next one on my list was Kairi. As crazy as I was for her, I wasn't crazy about the idea of embarrassing myself, as well as her. Again.

Oh well, my need to see her over-powered the little shame that I had left. I flipped open the phone and called her.

She picked up on the second ring.

"Hey Sora, what's up?" She answered like nothing had happened, as promised.

"Hey," I immediately felt better that she wasn't awkward, cuz then I would've been. But she wasn't. So I wasn't. "What do you wanna do today? I already called Riku, but he won't get out of bed."

I heard her give a short laugh on the other end on the line. "Well, how 'bout that one movie that was going to come out?"

"Nope, not until next week."

"Ok, then How about going to the mall?"

"What, again?"

She laughed. "Ok, geez. We could go get something to eat?"

"Just ate." I informed her, subconsciously patting my full stomach.

"Well Well, I don't know! Sora, you're the man, you pick something!"

"Me? Ok geez, Kai," I rubbed my chin in thought. "Ummm, um, um, umm We could ride bikes!"

She sighed. "In the rain?"

"Right. Then I've got nothin'."

"Ok, then you can just come over and do homework with me." Kairi decided in her deciding voice. Darn it, she was just like my mother. Wait, did that mean I liked women like my own mother? You know what, never mind.

I groaned. "Come on, Kai, really? Can't we save that for, like, the end of summer vacation? Like, the very, very end?"

"Well you do what you want. I'm going to start on it, because if we get it done now-"

"We won't have to do it later Ugh, I'll be over in a few."

I flipped my phone closed and pouted as I went back down the stairs. Shoving my feet into my shoes, I wrote a note saying 'gone to Kairi's' and left it on the counter. Who knew how long she'd keep me over there?

I was grateful that she had made me forget about this morning. No harm done.

Kairi lived just a few blocks down, and her big pale blue house had a view of the ocean. But then again, this was Twilight Town, which was on one big long hill, so everything had a view of the ocean. Of course, you would've been able to see it better if it weren't raining so hard. Like everyone else, their small yard mainly contained sand along with the grass.

I skipped the three steps up to their porch in one leap and rang the doorbell. It was at least 10, so everyone should've been up.

Kairi's little sister, Xion, opened the door.

"Good morning, Sora," She smiled cheekily at me. She and her sister could've been twins, if it hadn't been for Xion's dark hair And the year between their ages.

"Hey Xion," I squeezed past her into their house. It smelled like Kairi, but not really.

"No offence, but why are you here?"

"Ugh, your sister is going to put me through torture and make me do school work." I groaned.

She raised an eyebrow. "But you don't have your books," she observed.

"Oops," I winked at her and ran up the stairs to Kairi's room, which unfortunately was the only room in the house without a clear view of the ocean. But that was her luck.

"Hey, Kai." I greeted her as I walked into her room unannounced. Sometimes she got mad at me for that, but she was used to it.

"Knock next time," she commented but said nothing else. She was lying on her stomach on her bed, propped up by her elbows. She was looking at some sort of book, probably history. The thought made me shiver.

I plopped down in the middle of her room. "What? No 'hello'?" I joked, but she paid no attention to little-ol'-me. Until a few second later, when she sat up.

"How'd I know that you wouldn't bring anything?" She grinned playfully.

I shrugged. "Eh, it was just so heavy."

She rolled her eyes playfully. "Well, anyways, as soon as I got off the phone with you, my friend called,"

"Who? Riku?" You mean he would get up for a girl like her and not his best guy friend like me? The punk.

"Uh, no," she corrected. "I do have other friends besides you two, you know. Anyways, it was Namine who called. She wanted to go shopping, and I figured that I'd go. Since we're not really doing anything,"

I groaned. "You mean that I walked over here for nothing? And in the rain?"

"Yes," She smiled sheepishly. "I still have a couple of hours before I'm going to go meet her, so I thought that we could still hang out."

"A couple of hours? Geez, where does this girl live?"

"Two minutes away. Now, what are we gunna do for the next little bit?" She stood up and stretched her back.

The one thing about Kairi that I wasn't absolutely in love with was that she was moody. Not a moody like "oh-I'm-so-miserable" kind of moody, but more like, she could change it at the drop of a hat. One second, she was bubbly and happy, the next sad, the next mad. Seriously, it was like she wasn't capable of keeping up one emotion for more than a few minutes maximum. And she was so complicated. But I sort of liked that part.

I hopped up. "Uh, well you got any movies that we haven't seen a million times?" I suggested, bored.

She tapped her chin in thought. "Yeah, I think so. We rented a movie a couple of days ago, so we might still have it."

"Great! Then let's watch it." I smiled at her.

We spent the next hour and a half settled down on her family's couch, watching an action movie from the eighties. Her family sure knew how to pick 'em. Xion only watched it with us for the first thirty minutes before she left the room laughing hysterically. I was about to go join her, but thankfully the movie ended.

"That was boring," I stated, slouching down on her couch.

"Hey! That was a classic, you and Xion have no sense of anything!" Kairi defended the movie, which she had apparently loved. "The movie's heroine was awesome! They made her strong, and smart, and-" She continued going on about how apparently awesomely feminist the heroine was. I only noticed her in the movie once, and that was the, erm, sex scene. Whatever.

Eventually deciding that it was time to leave, Kairi tried to abandon me in her house, which I wasn't going to let happen. I ended up following her to the mall, where she was supposed to meet her other friend.

"Go, Sora, I want girl time." Kairi warned me with one of her famous glares. I swear that she and Riku got together to practice them for when they saw me.

I moaned. "But why, if you were the one who was so pumped up this morning, do I have to leave?"

"I'm still pumped!" She defended herself. "I just decided that I want girl time, that's all."

"That's all," I huffed. "You're abandoning me, abandoning 'Sora time', for some casual 'girl time'!" I pouted for a few moments longer, hoping that she'd notice. When she didn't, I threw my arms behind my head and started walking backwards.

"I forgive you, you know." I smiled, taking in every detail about her face. She didn't seem to be doing the same with me.

"Oh, you do?" She laughed.

"Yep, if you wanna go out and have a secret date, that's fine with me."

She jabbed me in the ribs. "I do not have a date! I told you, I'm hanging out with a friend!" She shouted at me. I acted like I didn't believe her, but I was glad that I really did. Her going on a date with anyone besides me might've killed me. I didn't want to find out if it would.

"Ok, Sora, seriously," She said after we arrived at the Twilight Town Mall, "I'm sure that Riku is up by now. Call him and do something, and leave me alone." She winked at the last part, but she was serious.

I blew out a huff of air. "Fine, fine, I see that you don't want me." I knew that pity wouldn't work, but I tried it anyways.

She smiled brightly at me. "Ok, great. Thanks Sora, sorry for abandoning you. Namine is right over there, so I'll see you later!" She waved and bounced off towards her friend Namine, who seemed to be looking for her.

I watched her go. A half-smile grew on my face, and soon a whole one.

I was sure that I'd get her, no one else. She was going to love me, she just didn't know it yet. No one else.

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**My first Fic, so be kind! XD I'm not totally set on anything plot wise, but I'm pretty sure I know what'll happen! ;D I'd really like critiques on my writing style, as long as its contructive! So please review and tell me your opinion of this! :D Thanks a ton.**


	2. Pitter Patter on My Rooftop

**Ok, sorry that it took so long! :O My full excuse is at the bottom notes.  
Roxas comes in and Namine has a slightly bigger part. Sora is actually quite a childish guy. XD His mom continues to rock...**

**I own nothing.**

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2: Pitter-Patter on My Rooftop

When someone is dying, can you tell?  
Is it just one of those things that we can't feel at all?  
Like the high-pitched whistle that only dogs can seem to hear.  
Or a scent that only a cat can pick up.  
But isn't it not more?

* * *

I had to say, this blonde spawn of the devil took after our side of the family. I decided this as I glared at him, and he glared right back. Our eyes were almost the same shade of blue, and mom kept commenting on it. But if I was really honest, the spawn looked more miserable than I did. And, for some reason, he glared better. But darn it, I was being pretty intimidating, too!

I just didn't practice glaring, was all. I'm too nice a person.

"Sora, why don't you show Roxas up to his room?" Mom suggested, apparently not noticing our duel to the death.

I ignored her and tried to focus on my-sadly-losing battle.

"Sora," mom finally noticed us. "_Sora_! Stop glaring and go help Roxas get settled in. Show him around the house." She instructed in that motherly authoritative voice that all mothers possessed. But it sounded weird when she used it.

I groaned. "_Fiiiine_." I scooted my butt up the stairs, the spawn following behind reluctantly.

My room was the first door to the left when you got to the top of the stairs, and I had left my door ajar. I slammed it shut as I walked by, to the second door on the right. I pushed open the door, but didn't move.

"This is the guest room." I muttered, not looking at him. Which was fine, cuz he didn't look at me, either.

He mumbled a "thanks," and went inside the room, slamming the door shut as I sulked back to my room. I jerked open the poor door and slammed it shut again. Slumping down in my computer chair I moodily swiveled back and forth. Stupid cousin, he'd ruin the summer for me! Why did my mom have to be so nice when it came to her brother? It's not like we ever saw him.

Speaking of the summer being ruined, or not, or whatever, I pulled out my phone and texted Kairi.

'_Hey, let's hang out'_

It took several minutes, but she replied.

'_Can't, Hanging with Namine.'_

"What?" I asked myself aloud. She was abandoning me again? For her girlfriends? Again? I groaned.

'_Where are you guys hanging out?'_

'_The mall. Don't come harass us.'_

Harass them? I had no idea what she was talking about. I never harassed anyone ever in my life!

I quickly called Riku, listening to his stupid phone ring. Again, he didn't pick up until the last ring.

"What?" came the irritated voice.

"Riku, come on, let's go to the mall!" I suggested, already heading towards my door.

"Uh…Why?"

I stomped down the stairs in a hurry, skipping the last two steps with a jump. "uh…Cuz we haven't hung out in forever! Come on, it'll be great."

"Sora, why are you suddenly so hung up on hanging out? You were harassing me about this yesterday. Get a life."

"Ya well, what's wrong with wanting to hang out with my friend?" I asked in self defense.

Mom noticed me on my way out, unfortunately. While I was still talking to my antisocial friend, she pointed upstairs and mouthed in a very slow, very clear way. _'Invite your cousin.'_ Ugh. Of course she'd want me to invite him; it was a mother's duty to be like that. Of course. Ugh.

I shook my head, mouthing a large _'Noooo'_ and showing the disgust on my face. But, being the nice aunt that she was, she simply raised an eyebrow and pointed back up the stairs. Good aunt, horrible mother. She was a traitor to her own cause!

"I'm busy,"

"What on earth could you possibly have to do?" I turned my attention back to my phone conversation momentarily before silently pleading with my mother not to force me to invite the spawn. I pulled out all the stops, the puppy dog eyes, the pouty lip, and the pleading hands. But she wouldn't take any of it. Darn it, the woman's as cold-hearted as a statue!

"I've got a date. And she's here. Goodbye." And with that, Riku ended our chat.

"You've got a date?" I asked my phone, because Riku had already hung up. That was, like, impossible. The weirdest thing ever. How in the world could Riku manage to get a date? The world would never be the same again.

"Sora, Riku's not going, so go march your butt upstairs and invite your cousin! Be polite!" Mom's voice invaded my thoughts and cut off all of my whining. But I would not be shut up so easily.

"But, _Moooooom_!"

* * *

Somehow, I think that we both knew that she'd eventually win out.

The awkwardness that came with being in the same room with my cousin only got worse when we got to the mall. It was crowded, as usual. Almost every store was beach-themed, the town being next to a beach, and it wasn't unusual to see people walking around in bathing suits. My cousin and I entered through the main entrance, into the mall's big courtyard. I had no idea where Kairi was or even if she was still at the mall. But my need to see her overpowered all reason. As usual. But my stupid cousin didn't look as convinced.

"If she told you not to come, why are we here?" He said as if the logic was perfectly reasonable.

I wanted to ignore him, but that would've just made it even more awkward between us. If that was even possible. "Because she didn't mean it." I shrugged. Of course she meant it.

"Uh…sure." He said. How in the world would he know if she meant it?

"Listen, I'm her best friend. She'll be a little pissed, but she said that she wanted to meet you, anyways. That'll be our excuse." I decided.

"Sure," He still didn't sound exactly convinced, but that was his problem.

"Ok, so I guess we'll just walk by the food court and all of her favorite shops. Then, if we still can't find her, we'll check everywhere else. And this was a big mall, so to check everywhere would probably take several hours.

I heard him sigh. "Yep, so that's why I came. You needed free labor."

"Hey! I'm insulted," I jabbed my thumb at my chest. "I don't need any help finding my friend. I was just being a nice cousin."

He gave a small snort, the punk. "Sure," He said yet again. But he didn't look totally annoyed anymore. Meh, like I cared.

"Ok, good, so let's start! The sooner we start the sooner that I-We-you get to meet her." I sort of stuttered on the 'us' part. He could meet her if he wanted to, I guess. It's not like he wouldn't if we found her.

The mall's usual golden-like glow was subdued and slightly gray that day, because of the rain that steadily poured down from the sky. Really, you think that it would get dehydrated or something and stop raining. Or at least have some mercy on us summer-vacationers down here. Unfortunately, it didn't look like it was going to stop any time soon. I was distracted from the gloomy weather anyway, though, with my mission to find the one red-head in the world that I loved.

"What does she look like again?" He just had a knack for interrupting my thoughts, didn't he?

"Straight red hair, skinny, always wears something pink, bright blue eyes. Really pretty," I added the last part grudgingly. Not because I hated to admit it, but because I hated to admit to _him_ that she was pretty.

"Is that her?"

My head spun in the direction that Roxas had pointed, to a pair of girls sitting on a bench next to an ice cream shop in the food court. Both skinny, both blue-eyed. But only one had that insanely beautiful red hair. I broke out into a grin as wide as Texas as I identified her as my best friend. So my cousin was a help, I'll admit. But I still didn't like the guy.

"Kairi!"

I ran over to her and her friend. I was so happy to see her, I was always happy to see her. I didn't notice it but my cousin followed behind at a slower, less rushed pace. But then again, he wasn't in love.

But for some reason, her facial expression didn't match mine. No, there was no insane joy or happiness there when she looked at me. Instead, there was annoyance and…sadness? That was enough to stop me dead in my tracks.

"Kairi, is something-" I started, my expression getting more serious, but she cut me off.

"Sora, I told you not to come harass us! Don't you ever listen?" Kairi stood up, her hands balled into fists. Her friend Namine sat silently beside her, not looking either mad or annoyed.

"Kairi, it's ok." She intervened on my behalf before Kairi really got herself worked up.

It was weird; Namine seemed to totally deflate Kairi. Said red-head sighed and unclenched her fists. "Why are you here, Sora? Who is that?"

"Huh?" I had totally forgotten about the annoying blonde that was my cousin was still there. My cheeks flushed at bit at the thought of him seeing Kairi get mad at me. But I shoved the feeling back down. He was just standing there, apparently looking slightly uncomfortable with interrupting what was apparently a serious scene. "Oh…This is my cousin, Roxas. He just came earlier today." I said quickly, trying not to focus the conversation on him. He looked like he didn't want it to focus on him, either.

Kairi smiled her polite smile and extended her hand. But I could see that it was a mask. "Hi Roxas, I'm Kairi, and this is Namine." She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear as they shook hands. That annoyed me, for some reason.

"Hey," Roxas responded to my friend and nodded down at the blonde, who stood up and waited to shake his hand as well.

"Hi Roxas, nice to meet you." Namine smiled warmly.

And the conversation had turned to focus on Roxas. "So where do you live?" The girls took turns asking him questions. Grilling him, more like it. But he didn't seem to mind, and just answered them as they came. Ugh, that guy annoyed me.

"I live across the country."

"Do you live in a city?"

"Yeah,"

"Oh, so is this place a small town to you?"

"Not really."

"Do you have any siblings?"

"No,"

"Is Sora and his mom your only family?"

"As far as I know, except our grandparents."

"Oh, ok. So do you have a girlfriend?"

"Uh, no."

"Oh really? How long are you going to stay with Sora?"

"All summer."

"That's great, we'll be able to see you some, then. So what-"

I had had enough of the two girl's unstoppable interrogation of my cousin, and his oh-so-cool way of responding. It annoyed the crap out of me, and why the heck were they asking if her had a girlfriend? That was totally inappropriate. Especially for Kairi to ask! I wanted to smack him. I wish that he _did_ have a girlfriend. "Oook guys, let's stop asking poor Roxas a thousand questions, all right?" I tried not to sound as annoyed as I probably looked.

The punk shrugged. "It's ok, I don't mind."

"No, really, let's give you a break." I patted his shoulder in as non-awkward a way as possible. It looked something like a piece of cardboard moving up and down.

Kairi sighed. "Not that it wasn't nice to meet your cousin, Sora, but why don't you guys just go home? Please?"

"But, _Kaaaaai_," I dragged out my nickname for her.

"Kairi, it's ok, really." Namine smiled. Apparently the reason that I was supposed to leave had something to do with what the blonde said. "It's nice to have some other people here."

Kairi looked back at her friend and there was a strange moment where they were talking, but not talking. Something was off and weird, and I found myself glancing at my cousin to see if her felt it. He glanced back for a second, and I knew that he did. But then it was gone.

"Sure," Kairi turned back to us, looking a little less annoyed, but still stressed. "Why not. You guys wanna go do something?"

Roxas shrugged. "Sure,"

"Like what?" I asked.

The two girls glanced at each other, trying to think up something to do. "We could go see a movie," Namine suggested.

We just stood around for at least ten minutes, trying to come up with something to do. It's amazing how many summer-like things that teenagers love to do can be stopped by good weather. It was depressing, really. The only thing left to do was go run through the rain, seriously. Or stare at the rain. Or listen to it. Ugh, stupid rain. Eventually, though, we ended up going to see a movie just like Namine had suggested, and then just walking around the mall. We tried on a thousand different sunglasses, or Kairi and I did while the two blondes just watched. While I hung out with Kairi all of the time, I had never hung out with either of the blondes before, but especially not my cousin. Namine was nice, if not a little reserved, but she had these flashes of brilliance when she was absolutely hilarious. My cousin, while not the most talkative either, did fit in really well, unfortunately. Apparently he liked skateboarding.

The four of us hung out until dinner time, when Namine had to leave and mom called to tell me and Roxas to come back home for dinner.

"Well, that was fun." Namine said as she was leaving. "I'm glad that I got to hang out with you guys. See you later," She waved and left the three of us at the entrance of the mall. We watched as she ran to the bus stop, trying not to get too wet.

"Wanna eat with us, Kairi?" I asked, turning my attention to her. What I really wanted was time to try and get her to tell me what had been going on earlier with her friend.

She shrugged. "Ok, sure."

"Great," I grinned, happy that she would be coming over. I was always happy when she came over.

The three of us took the bus to as close to my house as we could get, but we still had to run two blocks to get there. We all stood under the safety and relative dryness of the bus stop, none of us wanting to get soaked.

"I should've brought an umbrella," Kairi muttered miserably to herself, petting the ends of her hair.

"Ok guys, ready?" I asked, giving them a thumbs up and a gleam in my eye. Personally, I loved running in the rain, it was exhilarating. But that didn't mean that I didn't want the rain to stop.

"Hold on," Roxas spoke up, pulling off his short-sleeved jacket, and revealing more of his black t-shirt underneath. "Here," He handed it to Kairi. "Probably won't help much, though."

Gratefully, my traitor best friend took the stupid jacket from my stupid cousin's hands. "Thanks," She smiled gratefully at him as she took it. I wanted to puke.

Frowning, I snapped my fingers in an irritated way. "Guys, come on, let's go. I'm hungry." That was a lie, because I had just lost my appetite.

"Ok, ok, geez Sora." Kairi rolled her eyes. I counted to three and the three of us ran down those two blocks to my house, laughing and screaming like we were made out of sugar and the rain would melt us. It was almost surprising how quickly that I forgot about Roxas giving Kairi his jacket. I was too distracted by how her wet hair clung to her neck and gorgeous face. And I almost ran into a street light.

"My goodness!" Mom cried out when three wet children came stumbling and laughing into her house. "Sora, you're getting the floor all wet! Roxas you must be freezing, go and change. Kairi, you poor thing, come here let's get you some dry clothes." Mom ordered as she quickly threw towels over the entrance to soak up the rain water that was now puddles everywhere. The three of us did as we were told, me and Roxas each going to our respective rooms to change, but hurrying so as not to ruin the carpet in the hallways. Kairi obediently followed my mom back to her room, probably to borrow some of her clothes.

By the time I got back downstairs, everyone but Roxas had come back. Mom was just finishing up dinner and filling up four plates with her delicious food. She had obviously just come back from her shop, because the house smelled like flowery syrup.

Kairi was sitting at the counter, in clothes that were only a size or so too big. She looked good in anything, even my mom's stuff. Not that mom dressed badly at all. It was just…motherly, I guess. But not bad. I pulled out the stool on Kai's right and planted myself firmly in that seat. I liked this picture, with Kairi and me sitting next to each other, waiting for my mom to feed us. Wait, not the mom part. Just the…me and Kairi part. The part where we sit next to each other. That part.

Roxas popped up on my left, in the stool on Kairi's left. What? That was unacceptable; this was not how it was supposed to be. Roxas was not part of this, so why was he here? Oh right, I guess that he needed to eat, too. But still, how rude of him to interrupt my perfect scene, or whatever.

"Ok guys, eat up." Mom said in a sing-songy voice as she plopped three plates of pot roast and steaming vegetables in front of our hungry faces. I keep telling you my mom's a great cook.

Mom pulled up a chair and the four of us ate and chattered away and ate some more. But not at the same time. Mom poured our drinks and laughed at Kairi's story about her sister Xion and the adventures that she had with her cat. Even Roxas was laughing.

I kept my eye on Roxas the entire evening. He paid attention to Kairi, but not more so than anyone else. He was polite whenever he talked to her or my mom. There was nothing strange or overly-attentive in the way that he acted at all, but I saw it. I saw the moment that he decided that Kairi was pretty. I wanted to throw my food at him. Of course he would think that she was pretty, everyone probably did. You'd have to be blind to not see it. No, what bugged me was that it was _him_ who saw it. I wished more than anything that he had been blind at that moment.

"Thanks for dinner, Kairi called back to my mom as she started to leave.

"No problem honey! And you don't worry about your clothes, I'll wash them and it back to you tomorrow ok?"

"Ok, thank you so much!" She smiled and moved towards the door. "Well, I should go."

"Here, I'll help you with the dishes." I heard Roxas offer to my mom back in the kitchen. His voice seemed to remind her to thank him for letting her use his jacket earlier.

"Oh Roxas, thanks for letting me use your jacket!" She called as she opened the door.

"No problem," He called back, but made no appearance. For once, it seemed that he got when he wasn't wanted. I followed my beautiful best friend outside, where it had just recently stopped raining. "Finally," she sighed and took a deep breath. "No rain."

No kidding. "Amen to that," I agreed.

For some reason she hadn't noticed me before I had talked. She spun around to glare at me, and jabbed a finger in my face. "You, you ruined me and Namine's girl time today."

"Geez, sorry Kai." I waved my hands in front of me in defeat. "What's the big deal?"

The darkness surrounding her face reminded me of what had happened yesterday at six in the morning or so. I felt my cheeks heat up at the stupidity of myself. I still couldn't believe that I had said that. That was probably why she was pissed. No doubt.

"Sora," She sighed and rubbed her forehead with her hand. "You just…Need to know when to not go somewhere. Today was important, ok? It was serious."

Yeah, no kidding. I remembered all of those weird heavy moments when Kairi and Namine had seemed to be talking about something that didn't concern humans like me in the least. "Ya, speaking of which, what was that about, anyways?" I tried to pry. She seemed somewhere else.

"It's Namine's birthday next week," She said suddenly.

"Uh, that's great? What does that have to do with-"

"How about you give her a birthday present?" She continued. Obviously I was not a part of this conversation at all.

"Um, Why? It's not like I really know her or anything, she's just a-"

"Yeah, that's a great idea, actually. But what could you give her? You don't have anything that she wants." I wasn't sure if that was supposed to be an insult or not. But that time I didn't say anything, and just allowed Kairi to continue the conversation that she was apparently having with herself. Man, she needed to see a doctor or something.

"Well, maybe…no, you couldn't….but maybe…yeah, yeah, that's a great idea. It's perfect." She spun back towards me, jabbing that same finger in my face. Apparently she had remembered that I was there. "You have to promise to do it. Even if it's only for me, ok?"

I narrowed my eyes at her. "What do you want me to do?"

"Sora, I want you to make Namine one of your best friends."

"Uh…Why?" She was seriously confusing me.

Kairi sighed. "Because," her face scrunched up, like she was searching for the right words. "Because she needs friends."

"Well, I don't mind being friends with her." If there was one thing that I was good at in this life, it was making friends. Well, except for Riku, but he didn't count. That boy wasn't human.

"Ok good, but not just a friend, you have to make her your new best friend." She jabbed me in the chest. That finger was starting to annoy me. "Hang out with her as much as you hang out with me. Make her your new best friend."

"But, you're my best friend; I don't want a new one." We talked about it as if it was a shirt or something, but friends were serious. She was my one and only best friend.

"Sora, grow up, I'll still be your best friend. You're allowed to have more than one best friend." She groaned as if she was my mother. Half the time, I knew that she really thought that she was. That was disappointing to me, for obvious reasons.

But she was being weird. Why on earth would she suddenly tell me to get all buddy-buddy with one of her girl friends? And she had said that something was serious. It all smelled fishy to me, but there was something about that look in her eye. For once, I didn't have a problem being serious. I nodded.

"Ok, Kai, for you."

"And for her," She added. Then she remembered to smile. "It's for her birthday."

"Uh…Right."

* * *

**Sorry if it seems like things are rushing, I'm trying to not make it seem like a galloping horse or anything. Aha. So I've come up with a plot-line, at least for half of the story. The other half is coming into place, though.  
Sora, to me, is a fifty-fifty character. It's hard to not write him like a two-year-old at times, and at others I want to make him act very mature for his age. I guess he's just still in between the boy and manhood stages in life. So sorry if he seems a little inconsistent.  
And I'm so sorry that it took a long time for me to get this up! :O The beginning of this chapter was insanely hard to write, for some reason. I just couldn't get a grip on the starting point. But once I started working on it, it got a lot easier. Thank god!**

So, I'd still love suggestions if you have any, or any reviews in general. It's surprising how much that reviews effect my motivation. Thank you for reading this! I'll try to update soon, and I left off at an easier point this time ;) haha

**Until next time!**


	3. Good Day Sunshine

**Here's the next chapter! :) Sora scares the girls, everyone loves the sun, and secrets don't really get out. :) Enjoy!**

**I don't own Kingdom Hearts, or anything having to do with it!**

* * *

3: Good Day Sunshine

Sometimes stupidity can blind you,  
but at other times,  
it's the knowledge itself that darkens your sight.  
It just depends on your situation.

* * *

When I first started to pull myself out of my very deep, very comfortable sleep I noticed three things. The first was the smell of pancakes. Mom was in the kitchen making them, and their beautiful smell had traveled all of the way up the stairs. The second was this obnoxious light that poured in through my windows and struck me in the face like lightning. The third, and the only thing that really actually mattered was the fact that there was a red-head looking through my papers. I squinted my eyes at it, trying to think of who it was, but it would've been nice to be able to remember my own name, let alone theirs. Just saying.

"Oh hey Sora, you're up," Came that familiar voice that instantly made me wake up the rest of the way.

"K-Kai, what are you doing here?" There was no way that she could keep breaking in here; mom must've given her a key or something. "How do you keep getting in my house before I wake up?"

"That's because the rest of the world is already up, idiot. Take a look at your clock."

12:11 P.M. is what it read. Well, that was just stupid. I'm sure that somebody in the world was sleeping at that moment. I sighed and turned back around, scratching my head. "Well, then why are you here?"

She looked at me as if it was obvious. "_Because_ you, me, and Namine are going to the beach! It finally stopped raining, and the suns out! And let me tell you, it is _hot_."

"Why is Namine going?" I asked stupidly.

"What do you mean '_why'_? Sora, did you forget? You promised-" Kairi crossed her arms.

"Oh yeah, right. Sorry. I promised." I mumbled and detached myself from my sheets, which was actually very hard and involved practically falling out. Kairi just always picked the best times to visit, didn't she? I heard said girl scream once I got upright. "What's wrong?" I spun around to see her pointing at my pants. Or lack thereof. But it wasn't like I had nothing on! I had on my blue boxers, totally enough coverage to sleep in. But apparently not enough for Kairi. She clamped both hands over her eyes and kept screaming.

I stared for a moment, still trying to remember exactly who I was. My mom burst in the room, eyes frantic like she was prepared for murder. She probably was.

"Sora, what on _earth_ are you doing standing in front of Kairi like that? Go put some clothes on! You're _naked_!" I didn't see how wearing boxers equaled naked, but I did what she said anyways. My annoying cousin eventually walked in as I was putting my foot in my jeans.

"Um, is everything ok?" Apparently he had noticed either the screaming, the door slamming, the yelling or just the women's slightly rustled expressions.

Mom smiled and calmed herself down, something that she was surprisingly very good at. "Yes, everything is fine, Roxas. Sora just forgot that not everyone here is a boy." Well, I was insulted. I wouldn't forget that Kairi was a girl. I just…Didn't consider it when I climbed out of bed.

Mom checked her watch. "Oh crap, I've got to be at the flower shop in ten minutes. Ok, Roxas, lunch is downstairs, just help yourself. Kairi, feel free to eat lunch with the boys, there's plenty to go around. Sora, _stay out of trouble_, ok?" That was totally unfair. Why was I the only one who hadn't gotten something simple and food related?

As soon as my mom left, Kairi said. "Ok Sora, get dressed. We've got to meet Namine in thirty minutes!" She had that sound in her voice that she only got when she was about to hang out with girls. It was a good sound, I guess. But when she hung out with girls she rarely hung out with me. But it was different this time, 'cuz I was going to go, too. For once.

"Hey Roxas, why don't you come, too?" And there went that good mood, down the tubes faster than a bullet train.

"Where are you guys going?" The spawn asked.

"Oh, we're going to the beach. Me, Sora, and Namine. You know her, the blonde from yesterday? You should come, it'll be fun." The traitor replied.

"Sure, why not." The spawn gave a crooked smile that most girls would've liked, I guess. Thankfully, she didn't seem to notice. "There's not much to do around the house, anyways."

"Ok, great. Come _on_ Sora, don't make us late!" That was Kairi. She just _had_ to be nice and invite the devil's child, didn't she? Why not leave him up here in the guest room, where no one would talk to him. I'm sure that he'd be much, _much_ happier that way. I would be, at least.

Unfortunately, said spawn ended up joining us. Was it just me, or was she getting extremely attached to him, like a leach? Like the way that she talked to him…Twice. Or the fact the he, erm, never really stared at her. Ok, maybe it was just me. But it had never hurt to be a little cautious. I just didn't really know what I'd do if they started to get all lovey-dovey on each other. I could tackle him, I guess. But he looked about the same height and weight as me, so that was pretty much a 50-50 chance of winning. A 60-40 chance in my favor would be better. What, I was being realistic.

"Sora, where are you going?" Kairi's voice cut off my thoughts on how to take down my head ache of a cousin. "You're going the wrong way, we turn here." My best friend instructed me with the authority of a mother, as usual. You know, that was a bad habit that she was going to need to break. I was seven months older than her, darn it, and I deserved some respect.

Shuffling my feet, I followed her and the spawn all of the way to the bus that'd take us to the bus that'd take us to the beach. Namine met us at the first bus stop.

"Hey," Kairi greeted her friend with a smile and a hug. Roxas smiled and gave a small nod and I waved, "'Sup?"

The blonde smiled at the three of us. "Hi Kairi, Roxas, Sora."

I remembered the promise that I had made last night to Kairi, the one to be Namine's friend. I glanced over at my best friend. Suddenly I didn't really feel like keeping that promise, with her there. I mean, who would want to focus on Namine when Kairi was there? It just didn't make sense at all.

The rickety old green bus pulled to a loud stop in front of the bus stop. The door jerkily slid open, and an old plump man accepted our tolls. Kairi went on first, then me, then Roxas, and finally Namine. I followed my red haired crush all of the way to one of the very last rows, where she took a seat to her left. I went to sit next to her, but she snapped her fingers urgently and pointed to the row across from her, mouthing 'Namine'. I felt myself frown as I sulked down into the directed seat.

Roxas came up and made a move to sit next to me, which Kairi halted with a commanding glare. Reluctantly, he sat next to her. Geez, at least it wasn't just me who she bossed. But it was only the fact that he didn't look so happy to be bossed around that stopped me from boiling over. As long as he made no moves on her, I was fine I guess. And he looked kind of turned off to her now, thankfully.

I didn't notice that Namine had sat down until the bus had started with a jolt, making her bump against my shoulder.

"Sorry," She muttered. Nice going, Kairi. The only one who actually seemed to be happy with the seating arrangement was Kairi herself. Geez.

"It's fine," I mumbled back, not making eye contact.

So the bus ride, however long it was, passed in complete awkwardness. I cleared my throat and she shifted in her seat a bit, but besides that there was no interaction what so ever. Kairi's plan was going great. But I kept my eye on her and Roxas. The thought occurred to me that he knew that I was watching him, cuz the one time when they talked, he looked over at me in the eye for a good three seconds. I lost that battle too, darn it.

"Why do you keep staring over at those two?" I almost didn't hear Namine's voice over the engine and my own thoughts. But the fact that she had noticed made me embarrassed. But I was a guy so I didn't blush. Well, it wasn't _that_ pink, anyway.

"Uhh," I quickly averted my eyes from the two across from us down to the floor. It was very interesting, really. I scratched my neck awkwardly. "I'm just nervous that…Roxas won't make any friends. I've gotta look after my cousin, eh?"

She looked at me like she was starting to think that I was crazy. "Um, ok. But Kairi said that you didn't like your cousin." She questioned my lie.

Kairi talked about me? The thought would've been happier if it hadn't been about something stupid like my cousin. Why was she telling random people that I didn't like my cousin anyways? Well, Namine was her friend, so I guess she wasn't technically a 'random' person, but still. That was a private family matter.

"Uh, well…My…Mom, she told me to. Yep, she told me to look after my cousin. Gotta listen to mom, right?" I tried to smile naturally.

She smiled full on, apparently amused. "You listen to your mom all of the time?"

I was about to smack my forehead.

"That's sweet," She added. "I should listen to my mom more."

"Yeah," I nodded awkwardly, and the conversation ended there. I coughed into my hand.

The bus let us out next to a crossroads, where we crossed the street and walked up a block to get to the next bus stop. It turned out that we had missed it by like a minute, so we sat there and waited for ten minutes for the next one. I could've sworn that it had been an hour. The bus came, and we all got on. This time Roxas was up front and I was right behind him, so I made sure to sit with him. Kairi glared at me as she sat next to Namine, who seemed just fine. I gave my friend a smile, but she seemed to miss the love in it. She always missed it. Anyway, that bus took us right next to the beach. We got off, J-walked to the other side of the street, and walked down a set of wooden stairs to the beach.

The sky was a deep blue, the only clouds were billowing so far off that they almost blended in with the ocean. The water was the same color as the sky, and a few seagulls swooped around above us. It seemd like the entire town had had the same idea that we had. Immediately, I took off my shoes and shirt and ran towards the water, yelling back. "Come on guys! Last one there's a rotten egg! Especially you, Roxas!"

"Hey!" Roxas, totally out of character, tore off his shirt and shoes and ran after me, accepting my challenge. We yelled at each other all of the way to the water, where I won by a foot or two. Geez, he was a fast runner.

"Guys! Wait up!" Kairi called after us, the two girls following at a slower pace. While Roxas and I kept racing each other, they set up camp about half way down the beach.

"Kai, come on! The water's great!" I was just in a hurry to see her in her bathing suit. Hey, I'm a guy right? Kairi wore a purple two-piece. Modest, but revealing. She was gorgeous. Namine wore a white one-piece.

"Here I come!" The red head shouted, and the two girls joined us, giggling and splashing.

The day passed in perfect fun. The sun half blinded me, but it was great. Even Roxas wasn't being that annoying. Time flew like crazy, and before I knew it I was starving. But luckily Kairi had thought of that, so she had brought some food. Girls just seemed to always be so intuitive like that. They knew a man's stomach.

The four of us made our way to where the girls had set up camp. Kairi picked up a picnic basket that she had brought. Reaching in, she pulled out three sandwiches and handed them to Namine to pass out. Then she pulled out a sandwich for herself.

"Here you go, Sora." Namine panted as she handed me a slightly smashed peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but with only the jelly. Obviously, Kairi had made them. She knew that ever since third grade I'd hated peanut butter. That was horrible experience that had involved a toilet, a teacher, and peanut butter. Lots and lots of peanut butter. Just thinking of it gave me shivers despite the hot sun.

"I hate peanut butter," I muttered darkly as I took a huge bite out of my sandwich. I glared at Roxas' peanut butter included sandwich. The three of them looked at me like I was crazy.

For some reason, eventually the sun decided that it wanted to start setting. Which totally went against my schedule, and Kairi made us get ready to go.

"Ok Sora, you get the towels. Roxas, you get the basket." Kairi, in her most natural tone, ordered me and my cousin around. I did as I was told, but only out of love. Roxas paused. I could see him weighing whether or not it was worth it to fight over. Rolling his eyes, he did as he was told, too. That was weird to me, cuz who would ever think of not obeying Kairi, even if she was bossy? I mean, she was so gorgeous that it'd seem that she could get almost anything without any trouble. Apparently, Roxas didn't agree.

"Hey guys, do you want to go walk on the board walk for a bit?" Namine suggested.

"Why? It's getting late, and it will be getting dark." Kairi pointed out.

"Not for another hour maybe and it won't take that long." Namine smiled, and for some reason Kairi paused. "Come on, it'll be fun."

A moment of silence and then Kairi gave in. "Ok. But only for thirty minutes."

That was weird. Kairi never gave in, especially when it came to the daytime. She was convinced that any girl out past eight had a ninety-nine percent chance of getting raped or something. And here all that Namine had to do was flash an innocent little smile, and Kairi did as told. Or asked. It was amazing; I never thought that I'd ever see it happening. I'd have to ask Namine how she did it, because my smiles never worked like that. At all.

So we walked up the beach until we got to the board walk. Sunset was always the best time to go; the lights were on, the music played, and the view was incredible.

I turned just in time to see my annoying cousin space himself towards the skate boarding shop. Kairi noticed, too.

"Hey, Roxas, where are you going?" She called. I frowned.

He waved back at us without looking back. "I'm gunna look over here. I'll meet you back at home." I noticed that he didn't say '_Sora'_, even though that last bit was probably for me. The punk didn't deserve to say my name, anyway.

Kairi looked worried, I guess. And a bit annoyed. "But, you just got here, how can you get back?"

"I'll find my way." And with that, we lost him to the skating shop. That brightened my mood, but it obviously darkened Kai's. She turned and pointed a finger at me.

"Everyone in your family is annoying." She decided.

"What? I'm not annoying." I defended myself. That wasn't fair; it was only Roxas' side of the family. Him and his dad, they were the bad sheep in the family, not me. Geez, she was in a bad mood.

"Kairi, that was rude." The small blonde to my left decided to step in. She took a deep breath.

The mood really wanted to strangle me, I've gotta say. It almost made it hard to breath. But why did Roxas get on Kairi's nerves so badly? I mean, sure, he got on mine too, but I had a very good and valid reason for it. I guess that it should've relieved me that she wouldn't fall for him, but still. It was weird.

"You're right," Kairi sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I shouldn't get so worked up over things. Let's go shopping for a bit, hm?"

And just like that, the mood changed. That made it even weirder. But I shrugged it off. Girls were always weird like this, right? How would I know.

We spent the next thirty minutes looking in various ocean-themed shops and vendors. A bathing suit store, a sunglasses hut. We stopped in a snorkeling shop and looked through almost a thousand seashells. Kairi seemed to have an obsession for them. Somehow she managed to get me to buy her a whole bag of them. And that had nothing to do with my feelings for her, I swear. She was just born to get what she asked for, I guess. But I spent all of my money on her. Figures.

As we stepped out of the shop, Kairi's arms full of seashells, we spotted a certain blonde walking a bit farther down the boardwalk. We watched as my annoying cousin turned into a shop.

"Hey, isn't that Roxas?" Namine asked.

"Yeah," I muttered, taking my eyes off of him as he disappeared. Kairi didn't take her eyes off of his direction.

"Why don't we just all go home together then, since we see him and it's time to leave anyways?" Said red head suggested.

I shrugged my shoulders in a way that hopefully showed that I didn't really want him to come back with us. Well, I really didn't want to see him ever again either, but you take what you can get right? Kairi didn't get the hint, anyways.

"I'll go get him," She suggested.

I frowned. "I'll go," I countered. The last thing I wanted was them, alone, together, out of my sight. Even if he didn't like her, or whatever. I still didn't like it.

"No, I'm already on my way." Kairi glanced back briefly at me in a way that said _'There is a reason that you're staying here'_. I sniffed. I didn't get it.

"Why are you so against Roxas being with Kairi?" I swear I almost jumped sky high when Namine spoke from behind me.

Crap. "Uh, well I…uh, I'm-" Every word known to the English language seemed to run away from my mind. Stupid mouth. She waited patiently while I blabbed on and on, my mouth on 'overload'. Finally, I got it to stop. "I've got nothing," I admitted. But I wasn't going to admit why I was against Roxas being within ten feet of my crush.

"Are you that afraid that she's going to fall for him?" She guessed it anyways.

I sighed, and ran my hand over my face. I nodded.

"Oh," She smiled. "Because you like Kairi, right?" Man, how did she keep doing that?

I squeezed my eyes shut and nodded again. This was humiliating.

"I see," Was all that she said. I opened my eyes to see her looking off in the direction where my cousin and best friend had gone. "She doesn't know that." She didn't say it like a question, but like a statement. She looked back at me.

I groaned, running a hand through my spiky hair. I was having a bad hair day. "I know, and it kills me." It suddenly occurred to me the Namine was Kairi's best girl friend, and girls told each other these types of things. "But don't tell her!" I freaked. I almost screamed.

But all that she did was laugh a little. "Don't worry," She promised. "Your secret is safe with me." She made a crossing motion over her chest. "Cross my heart."

I wasn't sure if she would keep that promise or not, but it was too late to go back on it now. But boy, did I regret telling her, let alone anyone, about my super secret love. Come to think of it, I had only ever told one person ever, and it was her. Geez, it should've at least been someone that I trusted more. Smart move, Sora.

"But I'll keep an eye out, just in case." She added with a wink.

"What? Why would you need to keep an eye out for real? Does he really like her? Does she like _him_?" I immediately flipped out again. What can I say, it runs in the family. Sort of.

She laughed. "No, or at least, I don't think so. I wouldn't know anyways, I've never paid attention to stuff like that."

"Really? But you've liked people before, right?"

She paused and thought about it for two quick seconds. "Nope," She decided definitely. "Never."

My eyebrows rose. "Wow, congratulations, you've managed to save yourself from the heart ache of crushing. You deserve a prize." I clapped jokingly.

She laughed. After that, we decided to go after the two others in our group since they still hadn't come back. It was surprising, but we couldn't find either one of them. We looked for another ten minutes before I spotted a flash of that red hair that I know so well. Then I spotted an annoyingly spiky blonde head next to hers. What, was the kid copying me? Geez, he needed a life. Or I did. Whatever.

"Kai!" I called out. They both turned as we walked over to them. Neither one looked very happy. At all. In fact, they both had a severely annoyed expression on their faces.

"Um," Apparently Namine had noticed, too.

"Let's go. We've been out too long." Kairi interrupted in a rush. She spun on her heels and started marching for the nearest bus stop. Roxas wouldn't look at us.

"Uh, ok?" Me and Namine exchanged a small look of confusion, but followed after her anyways. Roxas decided to trail behind us.

Seriously, what was with those two?

The bus rides home were long and silent. Namine tried to make some small talk with Kairi, which failed miserably. I wasn't going to try that with Roxas, but I tried to talk to Kairi too. That was an even bigger failure. I was almost afraid for my life. The first bus stopped, and Kairi stood up at the exact moment as to jab in front of Roxas and make him take a step back. She did so in an extremely rude fashion. By that time, there was only a tiny bit of light left in the sky, just enough to make out the horizon. The next bus was just as bad, only this time no one talked at all. Rain started to drizzle and then pour about two minutes before the bus jerked to a stop at our last destination. Everyone got off, and this time Kairi was tailing in the far back.

"Ok, this was great. Lots and lots of fun." Kairi told us as soon as she stepped on the ground. But her tone sounded like it had been anything but. Like she could fool us with that tone. " Bye Namine, I'll see you tomorrow. Call me when you get home, ok?" She commanded her blonde friend, who nodded quietly.

My best friend nodded once at me. "Bye," And then she stomped off in the direction of her home, pointedly ignoring Roxas.

"That was strange," Namine commented with a sigh. The air was as tense that it was almost vibrating, but in a way that made me wanna choke.

I nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it was."

Roxas said nothing.

"Ok, I'll see you guys later." Namine waved. "Bye Roxas, bye Sora." And then she turned and walked off towards her own home. The two of us watched her go. Then, after the small blonde was out of sight, Roxas spun around and sulked off in the direction of my house. I watched him for a moment.

"Geez," I rubbed the back of my neck. "What was that about?" And then I followed after him. But I didn't follow him long. As soon as I caught up to him, I made sure to walk in front.

* * *

**Author's Note: Ok, chapter three! :D I'm not sure that I love it, but whatever. It's done. Some parts came easier than others, and sorry if it cut off sort of. I don't know, I feel like It cut off. I'm supposed to get up early tomorrow and its late enough already, so I decided to be lazy and not read over it. So excuse any mistakes. I'll probably be too lazy to fix them later, either. Sorry. :\  
So I feel like things are progressing. :) Sorry if it's not the greatest! And I'll try and get the next chapter out soon, but no promises!**

**Ok, Reviews keep me writing. Seriously, they make a difference. So please review! :D  
Thanks for reading!**


	4. La épine à mes yeux

**A flash back and a break from the norm…Enjoy!**

**Really? I don't own anything! No kidding! :O**

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4: la épine à mes yeux

"I think every woman should have a blowtorch."  
-Julia Child

* * *

_"Roxas, what do you think that you're doing?" An annoyed, slightly shrill voice came from behind me. I Stopped dead in my tracks but didn't turn to face her. I had to make sure that I wasn't going to blow a socket first. I had been hoping to avoid both her and my cousin for at least another hour or so, at least until I got back 'home'._

"_What?" I shoved my hands in my pockets and forced a blank look on my face as I faced her._

_Kairi's arms were crossed, her face not exactly happy. Somehow I got the feeling that I wasn't _actually_ doing anything bad or annoying, it was just annoying to her. Well, the feeling was mutual._

"_You just abandoned us back there, and you don't even know your way around." Was she trying to make it sound like she – or my cousin, for that matter – actually had wanted me to stick around? "That was stupid." If she was, she wasn't doing too great a job of it._

_I shrugged. "I told you that I'd find my way. I haven't gotten lost yet." I pointed out._

"_But the lights almost gone," She countered._

"_So?"_

"_So everyone knows that it's always harder to find your way around in the dark. Plus, Sora would get in trouble if he showed up home alone before you did."_

_I rolled my eyes. "So you're just looking out for your little buddy?"_

_That seemed to piss her off. It seemed that I just had a knack for doing that to her. Not that I minded, because she sure gave me my fair share of annoyances. She uncrossed her arms and instead placed her hands on her hips. It looked like she was debating what to say, or whether or not to say what she wanted to, or something. But she didn't say anything, she just glared. I glared right back._

"_You know, you're nothing like Sora." She finally decided on saying. "He's such a nice person. You're like a baby."_

_I had to admit, that hurt my pride a bit. I mean come on, being compared to Sora on the maturity level and losing? The only ones who lost that comparison were real babies and squirrels. And me, apparently._

"_Whatever," I was trying my best to sound as if this chick didn't annoy the heck out of me like she did. Because showing it would obviously give her some sort of sick satisfaction._

_She groaned, rolling her own eyes. "You're like a freakin' robot."_

"_Sure," I shrugged. Whatever she said._

_She narrowed her eyes at me like I was a threat. "Why don't you ever hold up your end of an argument, huh? I could insult you and your mother all day long, and all you'd say it 'Sure, whatever'. Don't you have a backbone?" She was trying to provoke me, I guess._

"_What's the point?" I said, ignoring the fact that I hadn't had a mother since I was five. And I could tell that she was getting frazzled. Not that she hadn't been already, but I was managing to make her even more so. The thought made me want to smile._

_She closed the fairly large gap between us with two large steps. She brought herself so close to my face that I had to lean back a bit, and I thought for a second that she was about to smack me, what for I had no idea. But she didn't, she just kept her hands on her hips and glared, as if she had stopped herself. A couple of really long, uncomfortable seconds past by with her glaring at me and me just sort of staring back. A few people who passed by stared at us two strange teenagers. Finally, she spun on her heels and stopped a few feet in the opposite direction._

"_Come on; let's just go find the others." She ordered. I stayed put._

"_No,"_

_She stopped. "What?"_

"_I told you that I'll find my own way back. Now buzz off," I kept my hand in my pockets as I started to turn back around._

"_No! I'm not gunna buzz off!" She yelled, pointing a finger at me. "I just asked you nicely, and what do you do? '_Buzz off'_. Oh, nice. Real charming."_

"_I'm not trying to be charming."_

_I could hear her stutter, trying and failing to come up with an answer to me. Sighing, I turned back towards her. "Listen," I started. "You're right, I'm not like Sora. I'm not some kid who's going to follow you around all day and do whatever you tell me to do. Believe it or not, you're not in charge."_

_Her face was a weird mixture of anger and something else that I couldn't identify. She opened her mouth to say something that was most likely insulting, but Sora's voice cut her off._

"_Kai!"  
_

* * *

I slowly woke myself up around 10:30 in the morning. The rain had been pelting down on the roof ever since last night, and that fit my mood just fine. Groggily, I blinked and sat up. The guest room had two windows, both only letting in a streaked gray light. The teal walls seemed gray, too. In fact, everything seemed gray. There was really only a small bit of life in the room, with none of the furniture ever really being used ever. My backpack and duffel back sat on a chair in the corner, unpacked. I wanted to be ready to leave as soon as possible.

I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed at a very slow, very sleepy pace. I didn't want to be up at all. That meant that I had to deal with my stupid cousin and his almost unbelievably annoying red-haired friends.

Opening the door, I glanced at the door to my left, Sora's door, to see it ajar. Inside there was crap scattered all over the floor, the same as yesterday. I heard his voice coming from the downstairs kitchen as I walked up to the stairs.

"Hey Mom, I'm going to head out, ok? Riku's finally wanting to hang out, so I'm gunna go over and play some games."

"Oh, ok. Aren't you going to take your cousin with you?"

"_Mooom_, come on. I don't want to have to hang out with him _again_. We did that yesterday."

"But he's still your cousin, you should-"

"Besides, Riku doesn't even know him, so it'd be awkward for both of them. Plus Riku said that he'd tell me about this girl that he's been seeing."

"Riku has a girlfriend?"

"Who knows. I didn't think that he could manage to get one. Ok Mom, thanks! I'll see you later!"

"Now Sora, wait just one seco-"

I heard the front door slam shut. Frowning, I continued on from where I had started to listen to my Aunt and her son and sulked down the stairs. I saw my aunt sigh and start to wash a couple of dishes. She looked tired, like dealing with my cousin sucked all of the life out of her. I didn't blame her. Just listening to him talk for more than five seconds gave me a head ache.

"'Morning,"

"Oh!" She spun around at my greeting and smiled a really bright smile at me. She was nothing like my dad. "Good morning Roxas. Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah," I tried to be polite for her, because she seemed to be the only one in this town that I actually liked, and I felt bad for her. "Do you need any help?"

"Oh no, not at all, but thank you for offering." She walked over to the other side of the kitchen to grab a bowl and spoon, and she gave both to me. "The cereal is there on the counter, and the milk is in the fridge. Take your pick." And with that, she went back to washing her dishes.

I stared at the cereal. I hated to eat breakfast, and I really hated cereal. It was too sugary and made me sick every time. So in the end I just brought the empty bowl and spoon with me into the living room, where I plopped down on one of their couches. I was so bored, and I hated this town already. I glared out one of their large windows at the rain. It never rained where I came from. I sat there like that for about ten minutes, but I wasn't keeping track. It could've been an hour for all that I knew.

The doorbell rang, and I heard my Aunt call out to me. "I'm sorry Roxas, but could you please get that for me?"

Dragging myself up off the couch, I shuffled over to the white front door. The thing was, it had a big crystal window in the middle, which distorted things on the other side, but still gave you a pretty clear picture of who was on the other side. And that picture currently had red hair. Crap.

I considered going back over to the couch, but she had probably noticed me through that door, too. Groaning to myself, I slowly undid the locks on the door and jerked it open, but kept my arm on the knob so as to keep her from coming inside. The girl was soaked from head to toe, as if she had just left her house and ran over, not even considering the rain. Maybe she hadn't, not that it made a difference. Her red hair was plastered to her red cheeks, but she didn't look cold. It was summer rain, after all. And she looked surprised that I had opened the door. So I could've gotten away with leaving after all. Darn it.

"Hey," She started timidly, wiping some hair off of her face and not quite meeting my eyes.

"Hey," I responded.

Neither one of us said anything more for a second. Then she said. "Why are you holding an empty bowl and spoon?"

I glanced down at the two items and shrugged. I really had no idea why I hadn't put them back. Then it was awkward for a few more moments.

"Um," She sighed, and looked somewhere off to her left. I waited. "Hey, can you, I mean we, talk?"

"Talk about what?" I asked. This Kairi was different from the mad Kairi. This was easier to deal with. So far.

"Um…Last night. You know, when I, uh, blew up in your face?" She still didn't look at me. This was something that was close to pulling teeth for her, if her face was any indication.

"Are you serious?"

She spun her head toward me. "Yea, of course I'm serious!" She seemed to be getting pissed again.

"Why?" The corner of my mouth twitched.

"Wha-what do you mean, '_Why'_? Because apologizing is the right thing to do." She said it as if she had been preaching in a church.

"Right." I nodded slowly.

Her eyes narrowed, as if she was judging whether or not I believed her. "Well, can I come inside?" She asked instead.

"Whatever, it's not my house." I moved aside and let the red head in. I guess that I didn't mean to make things difficult, but she made it so easy. Her hair dripped on the floor, but only she noticed, because she had to point it out to me.

"Can you go get a towel, please? Sora's mom keeps some in the laundry room." She only half commanded, but I could still hear it. I raised an eyebrow.

"Get it yourself."

"Well I would, but I don't want to drip all over Sora's house!" She snapped at me as if it was obvious, and pointed towards the laundry room. "Now please."

"Fine," I left and went over to get a towel. On the way I made sure to put back the bowl and spoon. I flipped the on the light switch in the white room. There were piles of clothing everywhere, and almost all of the piles contained teenage boy clothing. Sora obviously didn't ever come anywhere near this room, his clothing was too neatly stacked. I found a towel in one of the piles and picked it up. I went back to the living room, tossing the towel in her direction. "Here,"

"Thanks," She mumbled, trying to dry her hair off.

"Yep," I muttered as I plopped back down onto the couch. I watched silently as she blotted her hair and shirt dry. She kept her blue eyes glued to the floor, apparently avoiding eye contact. But I kept my eyes on her. In a way, I guess I was challenging her. Come on, look back at me. I don't know why I wanted her to. Maybe I wanted her to be embarrassed, for whatever reason. But she didn't look embarrassed, she looked more…controlled? Yeah, that was it. Everything that she was doing was highly controlled. Like she wanted to lash out but she was holding herself back. So did I want her to lash out at me?

Definitely not.

When she decided that she was done, she finally looked up at me. And her gaze so clear, with such a deep intelligence, that I couldn't hold her eye, and I looked down at her feet.

"Roxas, I'm trying really, _really_ hard to be nice to you," She started. I shifted in my seat and looked the other way. "Because you are Sora's cousin, and I've only known you for two days. I don't normally let people's impression of me get this bad so fast." Somehow, I didn't quite believe that part. "So from now on, I'm going to try and be my nicest around you. All that I ask is that you try to be nice, too. Ok?"

I didn't really know what to say besides somehow agreeing to her proposal. It's not like I was in a constant mood for a fight.

"Ok," I said, looking back to her. "But don't order me around. Acting like my mother will put a definite stop to me trying to be nice to you."

She took a deep breath. "I don't see how I ever act like a mo-"

"You do."

"I don't."

"Yes, you do."

"I think that you're overreacting just a bit."

"No, I'm not. You boss everyone around, especially Sora."

"So you want me to stop '_bossing'_ everyone?"

"No, just me."

"Ugh, fine." She gave in, bringing her hands up in a sign of both surrender and annoyance. "I'll try my best _not_ to boss you. But since I don't really see how I _do_ boss you, you'll have to forgive me if I slip up." She had that annoyed look on her face.

"I'll point it out to you," I decided, twisting back around to grab the remote and turn on the television. I was hoping that that would be the signal to her that the conversation about it had ended. But I guess it wasn't.

"I don't need for you to point out to me whether or not I'm bossing people," She countered, coming around into my line of view, her hand on her hip. She opened her mouth to say something else, but second-guessed it, her mouth still open to talk. After a second she closed it with a sigh, and sank into the chair closest to the side of the couch that I was sitting on. We sat in silence, watching a television program on overcoming the fear of roller coasters.

"Oh, Kairi!" My aunt's voice broke our concentration on the program as she walked into the front living room, a clothing basket under one arm. "I didn't know that it was you. You just missed Sora; he's on his way to Riku's. You could probably catch him on his way there." She said with a smile as she ran a hand through her messy mom-like hair.

There was a bright moment of hope where I thought that Kairi was going to rush after Sora and leave me in peace.

"Oh no, that's ok, I'm just getting to know Roxas a bit." Kairi smiled and shattered that dream of mine.

"Oh, really? How nice of you, I'm sure that Roxas is happy to have company since his inconsiderate cousin left him all alone today." Sora's mom said as if she was talking about someone else's child. Kairi laughed.

"Well, Roxas is nice." I was sure that she was lying through her teeth when she said that. Only she was really bad at it. I think that even my aunt could tell that she didn't really mean it, at least not fully.

"Ok, well you just call me if you need anything." She turned towards me. "Roxas, did you eat breakfast?"

"Um, Yes." I lied; hopefully better than when Kairi did it.

"Good." She smiled. "You guys know where the snacks are if you need to eat." She called back as she turned and went back to her motherly duties.

"Why did you do that?" Kairi demanded.

"Huh?"

"Why did you tell her that you had breakfast when you didn't? It wouldn't be a big deal to just admit that you hadn't eaten anything." She preached. I vaguely wondered how she even knew that I hadn't eaten anything yet. Geez.

"Um, because she'd tell me to eat." I stated.

"What's so bad about that?" I swear she was the noisiest person that I knew.

"Because I don't like breakfast." I "pronounced it slow and clearly, so that she could fully understand the simple statement. She looked pretty annoyed.

Staring at me for a second, I could see that she was turning over all of the words in her head that she wanted to say. She was just choosing which to say first.

"You're about to be bossy." I pointed out.

"Wha-No I was not!" She half exploded. Her cheeks matched her hair, and I was pretty sure that it was because she was so pissed at me. "I'm _trying_ to be nice to you, and you just joke around and mock me about it!" She stood up in a huff.

"I'm not joking," I offered. I was just doing what I told her that I'd do, man did that woman needed anger management classes. "And how is telling me not to lie to my aunt _'being nice'_? That's still bossy if you ask me." I stood up too. For some reason I didn't like the fact that when she was standing and I was sitting she could look down on me. At least when I stood I was a bit taller than her. But I still would've rather stood up on the couch so that she really had to look up at me. But that'd look stupid.

"Yeah, well…" She trailed off for a second. "I was trying to be nice about it." I don't think that she really noticed the height difference, darn it.

"Well, you failed. Good job," I grunted and sank back down into the couch. I watched as she sat back down in her seat as well, albeit a bit more gracefully.

I watched her for a minute or two out of the corner of my eye. She glanced at me once or twice, probably sensing my stare, and every time I'd quickly look back at the television.

"Why'd you want to stay here with me?" My curiosity got the better of me.

She sank back into her seat before turning to look at me. "Because I really don't want us to hate each other," She said simply. As if that explained it.

"Um, I'm pretty sure that I don't hate you." I shifted uncomfortably.

She sighed and shrugged, looking back at the t.v. "No, but you would eventually, I think. A relationship is pointless unless it's a good one, right?" At that last word she looked back at me. There it was, that clear look in her eye again. I guess she got that look whenever she was trying to be nice. But she looked better when she looked at me like that.

I mean, she never looked bad or anything. Not that she ever looked _really_ good, and never in _that_ way, but…

Never mind.

"Uh," For some reason, 'uh' was the only word that my mouth could produce. And it's not even a word.

She smiled. "So you and me are going to be friends, right?"

"Uh…"

"Or at least not get in, like, three fights every time we see each other." She chuckled to herself.

"…Uh,"

"Is that really all that you're going to say? 'Uh'?" She raised an eyebrow at me.

"Uh…no? I mean yeah." I stammered. "I mean, I don't want to fight, I guess." Geez, I was sounding as stupid as Sora.

That seemed enough for her, despite my stupid mouth. "Ok, good." She tapped a finger to her chin. "So, we should limit the fight to…should we say, two fights a week? And then we can go from there."

I raised my eyebrows. "Two fights a week? What, should we plan the day that they're on, too?" I mean, come on.

"No," she rolled her eyes. "But if there is a limit, it might help us not do it. And there should be a punishment if we go over the limit. Something that we'd both have to do, something that's gross…" She trailed off, thinking of acceptable bad things for us to punish ourselves with. I swear that this lady was crazy.

I stayed silent. Like I was going to volunteer punishment ideas to her.

"Wait," she said, snapping her fingers. "What about a freezer?"

"Huh? What about a freezer?" She _was_ crazy.

"Well, my mom works at a restaurant, so I have access to a very large walk-in freezer. If we fight more than twice in a week, we both have to go stand in the freezer for thirty minutes, in only our underwear." She almost sat back, but thought of something. "Separately! Of course," She added in a rush.

"Why in the world would I do that?" I asked lamely.

"You wouldn't, so that's your incentive to not get in a fight more than twice." She said as if it made total sense.

"Uh, sure." I gave in. It's not like I'd do it, anyways. Even if we fought fifty times in one week. Not gunna happen.

"Ok, great. So with that settled, I have to tell Namine." She stood up and ran a hand through her drying hair. "So I'm going to leave, if that's ok with you." She started to make her way towards the front door.

I stood up after her. "Why do you have to tell Namine?"

She looked back at me. "Well, if we're going to have this deal, she's going to have to know about it. Just in case we fight, or something, you know? I mean, neither one of us would want to go into that freezer, so she's going to have to enforce the law on us."

Somehow I couldn't imagine that fragile-looking blonde do anything anywhere close to enforcing something. She looked like a blonde snow white, in a way, so why the heck would she do something like that? Well, that reasoning didn't really make any sense. "Ok, sure," I agreed dully as I followed her to the door. She sure was being friendly for us just now deciding not to hate each other, or at the least putting a limit to our fights.

"Ok then," She spun the door knob and swung open the front door to reveal – guess what – more rain. Only it looked slightly heavier.

"Darn it," She groaned. "You don't happen to know where the umbrellas are kept, do you?" She asked me after a pause.

"No," I answered flatly. "And what happened to your umbrella in the first place?"

"I left it on the bus," She answered back just as flatly.

"You forgot it?"

"No. I told you, I left it there."

"Uh, _why_?" I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Because there was an old man who had forgotten his umbrella, so I gave him mine. It's easier for me to get over a cold than him." And for not the first time today, I stared at her. Only this time, the look on my face was one of unbelief. I mean, who even _does_ that sort of thing anymore? She really was crazy, this girl.

"…Good…for you?" What was I even supposed to say to that?

"Well, I guess I can just run to the bus stop, it's not that far. But still, I'm not too keen on getting so wet again." She ignored me, and started talking to herself.

Automatically, I left her and made a bee-line for what I had guessed to be the coat closet under the stairs. I opened it, and inside there was a vacuum and almost a million fluffy coats. So I had been right. But at the bottom, next to the vacuum, were three umbrellas, all of them either black or grey. I picked up the closest one, a grey umbrella, and closed the closet door. I brought it back to Kairi before she had even noticed that I was gone.

"Here," I offered the umbrella to her.

"Oh, thank you." She took the umbrella. "Well, I'll see you later, then, ok?" She smiled awkwardly and nodded a goodbye before opening up the umbrella and taking her first steps out into the pouring rain. I nodded back at her, but didn't say goodbye.

She turned back at the bottom of the front steps and called back, "Tell Sora that I stopped by, ok? I'll see him tomorrow and return the umbrella."

"Sure," I shrugged. Like I'd tell Sora about this. He was obviously already suspicious of me being with, who I suspected, was his crush. He'd probably attack me if he knew about this, no matter how innocent it was. He was just that stupid.

"Bye!" She called again, and then was gone, just a girl with red hair running down the street. Leaving the door open let the humidity in the house, which was carefully air conditioned, but I left the door wide open so that I could stare after her. She really was something else. I wasn't sure if I really liked it, but she was unique, I guess. Bossy, but unique.

I just hadn't figured out if that was a good thing or not.

* * *

**Title translation(Hopefully Correct): "The Thorn In My Eye" Lovely, I know. ;)  
Ok, I'm not sure if this has been any faster than the last update, but I tried! :D Since it'd be kind of hard to do Roxiri from a purely Sora POV, I decided to take a step into Roxas' mind. I actually debated between his POV and Kairi's, but he won out. Mainly because, even though it's sort of hard for me to write him, it's **_**waaaay**_** harder to write her. So! But don't worry, it'll still mainly be Sora, but I'll need these chapters of Roxas to tie in the whole Roxiri thing. :)  
I'm not too confident of the way that I wrote Roxas, but I tried to give him a teenage-ish point of view while making him different in writing style from Sora, which I think is important. To me, he's more mature, but not totally, so he still has his moments of 'Sora' haha ;)  
In this fic, I've really not defined for myself the 'villain' or anything. In life there is no clear villain, so I don't want there to be here, either. People do good and bad things, bad people can say something nice, and good people can screw up. I want to keep a balance here, and every character will act in the way that I think goes along with who they are. So sorry if no one has a clear 'good guy' thing going on. Neither Roxas nor Sora are knights in shining armors. :\ Sorry, but I'll still make them sweet, promise! :D**

**Ok, thanks for reading all of the way down here, if you have. :) The Next chapter is back to Sora, with (hopefully, I don't really plan **_**too**_** far ahead in this story) more Namora! ;D  
Please review, thank you so much for reading!  
Until next time!**


	5. Bigmouth Strikes Again

**A late update, as usual. I think that I'm starting to accept my failures.**

**I own nothing. Shocking.**

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5: Bigmouth Strikes Again

"I have the necessary lack of tact."  
-Ted Koppel

* * *

A week went by unbelievably fast. It rained five out of seven days, and it was still raining. God just wanted to make this a gloomy summer, didn't he?

Roxas was still tagging along with us, thanks to my mom. I don't think he wanted to hang out with me just about as much as I didn't wanna hang around him, but for some reason, my mom had a weird delusion that we were the best of friends. Even though I tried to explain to her that we practically about _hated_ each other, she still insisted. It didn't make any sense.

Namine was hanging out with us, too. She I didn't mind as much. But for some odd reason, she'd never talk for very long with me. Not that she was too shy to talk to me, and not that I wanted to have some deep, long conversation with her, but still. She'd talk to Roxas more than she'd talk to me. And talking to him was like talking to a brick wall. Kairi always treated her like a flower, too. I mean she seriously babied her friend. I don't know how Namine stood it all the time, with Kairi not letting her do hardly anything. That would kill me.

Still, even with my pain of a cousin, I was sort of getting used to the four of us hanging out. Sort of.

I rang Kairi's doorbell with two quick taps. I always did that, but only at her house. That way, she knew that it was me.

"Hey Sora, come on in." Xion greeted me with a smile when she opened the door. I guess she was becoming the family's official door-opener. She stepped aside to let me in, and I waltzed into their house like it was my own. I mean, I had spent half of my childhood here, so it kinda was almost like home. Except that it smelled more like perfume.

"Kairi, Sora's here!" Xion shouted up the stairs.

I heard Kairi's door open and close, and the red head appeared at the top of the stairs. "Geez Xion, do you have to yell?" She asked irritably as she came down the stairs.

She shrugged and walked off, ignoring her big sister.

Kairi groaned. "What took you so long, Sora?"

"It's raining," I pointed out the obvious and then pointed outside. Great, I could tell that she was in a lovely mood. "What's the rush, anyways?"

She wacked me on the forehead like I was a baby, "It's Namine Birthday today!" She practically shouted. "You have to help me get ready for her party! We're already thirty minutes behind!"

Oh right. That was one of the excuses that Kairi had given me to be friends with Namine: for her birthday. I didn't mind that, I guess, but the last thing that I wanted to do was plan a party. Especially when my best friend was in one of her 'moods' and I could barely hang a streamer without bringing the whole house down. There was a reason why my mom never let me help plan anything, you know. A very good reason, too. It's because I'm me.

"But why do I have to help?" I pouted.

"Well, who else is going to help me? Namine?" She asked sarcastically.

"What about Xion?"

"She's going to a friend's today," Kairi informed me. "And besides, that girl has the party sense of a buffalo."

"Buffalo wings are great at parties," There, my contribution to the party menu and my defense of the unlucky one that I was hoping to take my place. Please God, let Kairi make Xion do it!

"Sora, stop being stupid. You're going to help me, so stop whining." Well, it had been worth a shot.

"_Fine_," I grumbled. "But I'm not happy about it."

"That's ok." She smiled. "And don't worry, all that you'll have to do is the manual labor. You don't have to think at all!" How insulting. And besides, the physical stuff was what I always did wrong in the first place. Not that I was wimpy, or anything. In any way what-so-ever.

"Great, so grab your umbrella. The bus will come in about four minutes." Kairi ordered, grabbing one of her umbrellas. Weird, she had the exact same kind as we did. Maybe it was an omen for our future together? Wait, that didn't even make any sense.

"Sure, sure." I followed her out onto her porch and opened my umbrella almost at the same time she did. I followed her down the street to the nearest bus stop, where we only had to wait two more minutes or so until the bus got there.

"Hey, Sora?" Kairi asked as she sat down on the sheltered bench. "Why isn't Roxas here?" She asked idly, like she didn't care. I stared at her for a long second, and it looked like she didn't care, either.

But of course I was paranoid anyways. "Why? Why does he always have to be with me, huh? Am I his babysitter? I mean geez!" I threw up my hands in the air and then shoved them in the pockets, still grumbling to myself.

Kairi raised an eyebrow. "Freak out much? Calm down, I was just asking." She said with a huff, crossed her arms and looked the other way.

I stood there, feeling like a jerk. Heck, I was a jerk. The love of my life, asking about part of my family, albeit an annoying part, and I blow up at her.

"Kairi," I started, rubbing the back of my neck. "I'm sorry, I-"

"Just forget it." She interrupted me as the bus pulled up. "Come on, we're late." She commanded, climbing onto the bus.

I sighed, rubbing my eyes. Great going Sora, one more point against you.

"Coming?" She called back irritably.

I snapped out of it. "Yeah,"

* * *

As soon as we entered the party store, a guy dressed up like a clown ambushed us.

"Why _helloooo_ there, how can I help you?" He asked in a goofy voice as he got in my face. He had on a blue wig, with his face paint sloppily painted on and the oh-so-famous red clown nose.

Oh, how I hate clowns.

"Woah, dude, back off!" I jumped back and slapped the clown in the face. That got him mad, so he called security. That got us thrown out. And that got Kairi even madder at me. So that didn't go over well at all. But hey, I had been defending myself!

"Nice going," I could tell that Kairi was restraining herself from hitting me, or at least insulting me to death.

I sighed. "Sorry, it's just that he got all up in my face, and you know how I hate clowns!" I rubbed my ear.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Let's just hurry and get to another store before the guests start arriving." She groaned.

"Wait, what? What guests?"

"The party guests, duh." She rolled her eyes, pulling me with her to find another party supplier. Preferably one without clowns.

* * *

Once we had found another party store and stocked up on the party supplies, Kairi dropped the bomb. You know, the _'You're going to pay the bill'_ bomb. Talk about a pain in my wallet. I lost all of my money on the stupid birthday party for a girl that I had barely just started hanging out with. And Kairi was totally fine with it. Ugh, that woman had an iron will. I mean, who could steal all of a young man's money for a cause that he isn't really a hundred percent even a part of? Especially when I had given her the baby face! Nope, only Kairi could resist it, which was bad, since she and my mom were the only ones that I used it on. Sometimes it doesn't even work on my mom.

And now she was forcing me to set up the entire party by myself. Well, with her wise direction, of course.

"Hmm, no, a little to the left. Not up! To the left," She waved her arms up and down as she yelled at me, the helpless guy on the ladder.

"I'm moving it to the left!" I tried to keep my balance as I taped the blue streamer to the doorway. I mean come on, who put up streamers for a girl's sixteenth birthday party. Wait, it was her sixteenth birthday right?

"Hey-how…old is Namine-turning?" I asked as I jumped up, flinging another line of streamers onto the cabinets.

"Namine? Oh she's turning sixteen," Kairi muttered, something in her voice off. Was it too much to hope that it was her getting jealous that I was asking about another girl? Probably. Besides, whatever it was, I don't think that it really had anything to do with me. How did I know? Because if it did, she would've yelled at me, which she didn't do. So I was free of blame.

The doorbell rang once, but Kairi didn't make a move for the door at all. I thought that Xion or someone would get the door, but no one did. When the doorbell rang again I asked her, "Hey, Kai, aren't you gunna get the door?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Thanks," She snapped herself out of it, although there was still something weird in her eyes. It didn't like it, whatever it was.

But I totally forgot it the instant that she opened the door to reveal my annoying blonde spawn of a cousin.

"What the heck are you doing here?" The words blew out of my mouth before I even had the breath to blow them out in the first place.

"Sora, don't be rude!" Kairi exclaimed.

"I was _invited_ here," Roxas rolled his eyes at me and shrugged. "And what else did I have to do?"

I looked at Kairi, shocked. "Why'd you invited him?"

"Um, because you, me, and Namine are the only ones that he's really met here so far. Plus, it'd be rude not to." Kairi said evenly as she went back to her decorations.

"How'd it be rude?" I crossed my arms.

"Sora, just shut up and help put up the decorations, ok? Roxas, you can help too." She paused for a moment, her arms only half way out to grab some streamers. I saw her gaze flicker towards Roxas before unfreezing herself and continuing what she was doing.

Roxas shrugged. "Whatever,"

Kairi sighed. I raise an eyebrow. What was that about? I opened my mouth to interrogate the two of them when the doorbell rang again.

"Sora, will you get that?" Kairi asked me.

"Sure," I trotted over to the door, and without looking to see who is was, I flung it wide open.

"Oh, hi Sora." It was Namine.

"Crap," I shouted, and slammed the door shut. "It's Namine!" I yelled back to Kairi and Roxas as I ran back over to her.

"What?" She shouted, grabbing my sleeve. "We're not ready! The guests haven't started arriving, and the decorations aren't even close to being done!"

"What should I do?"

"Stall her!" She pointed back at the door urgently.

I nodded hurriedly. "Ok, how long do you need? Two, three minutes?" I asked.

"More like two or three hours!" She said and shoved me back towards the door. "Now go!"

So I ran back towards the door and flung it open again, but only enough to let me slip out of the door and slam it shut behind me. Namine looked surprised to see me squeeze out the door and shut it tightly behind me. But she might've just been surprised that I had slammed the door in her face, or the fact that I had answered the door in the first place, seeing as I didn't live here.

"Hey Namine," I still had my back pressed up against the door. "What's up?"

She looked suspiciously at me. "Why did you slam the door in my face? Where's Kairi?" She asked, crossing her arms.

"Uh, Kairi? Nah, she's not here right now…I've been watching movies-with Xion!" I lied in a jumbled rush. It wasn't my fault that I was a bad liar.

She looked like she was about to say something, but decided against it as she took a deep breath. "Um, Kairi said that she wanted to hang out today, so-"

"Oh ya, she mentioned something about that, but she's not here right now you see, I've only been here cuz I'm friends with her sister, too. You know, Xion? Yeah, we've been watching movies." I put my mouth on 'overload' and even I barely listened to the babbling that was coming out.

"You already told me," She smiled.

"Oh really? Ah, sorry I have a short memory. Hey, you know what? Let's look for Kairi!"

"Oh that's ok, I guess I'll just wait here-" But I cut her off.

"Oh no! I mean, come on that's boring. I know all of Kairi's usual hang out places, I'll take you! I'm sure she's somewhere out there." I said as I went back and forth rubbing the back of my neck and tugging at my ear. Nervous habits.

"Well, that's ok. It looks like it's going to rain…" Namine trailed off, a bit uncomfortable. Not like it hadn't been raining all day, anyway.

I laughed. "Oh come on, where's your sense of adventure?" I demanded with a light nudge of my fist to her arm.

"Don't have one," She answered with a small smile.

"You don't have one? Psh, _every_one has a sense of adventure!" I said more loudly than I had intended. Man, lying really messed my senses up. Loud was quiet and quiet was loud, you know?

"Well you don't want to abandon Xion, do you?" Namine asked. Somehow I think that she knew that I was lying.

"Oh, um…Yea, she's on the phone with her boyfriend right now. It might be hours, you know." Man, was I good.

She sighed tiredly. "Really, Sora, we don't have to go looking for her."

"Nah, it's no trouble at all! Come on," I grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her away from the danger-zone that was Kairi's house. But now that I thought about it, I had no idea where to go. Did Kairi even have usual hang-outs besides my house? Crap, I'd just make something up.

"Um, it really looks like it's going to rain, so shouldn't you get an umbrella?" Namine asked in huffs behind me.

I stopped. "Oh, uh," I glanced up. The sky looked like it was going to eat me. "Right. You stay here, I'll be right back!" I let go of her and ran back to Kairi's house. Flinging open the door, I grabbed the umbrella that Kairi had been using earlier that day when we had gone out.

"Oh, is Namine gone?" Kairi called as she spun around towards me. I saw that Roxas was in the same position that I had been in: labor worker.

"Nope, we're going to look for you." I answered in a rush, already closing the door. "Bye!"

"Wha-"

I shut the door back and jumped down the stairs. I saw that, like I asked, Namine hadn't moved from the spot. But she wasn't looking at me; she was staring at that mean-looking sky. Her eyes were closed and she had this peaceful look on her face, like she was happy that the sky looked like that, or something. And then it looked like she was crying, when I got close enough. One wet spot on her cheek, and then one more, and then another. The first drop ran down her cheek and I realized that she wasn't crying as a couple of drops hit me too. It started raining.

But she just stood there happily.

I almost hated to interrupt her, she looked…She looked, well…She looked different standing there like that. Like she wasn't even human, like she was above the world. If that even makes any sense.

"Um," I opened the umbrella and held it out to her. "It's raining."_ 'Brilliant observation, Sora'_ is what Kairi would say.

Her eyes snapped open and in an instant the look on her face was gone, and she was blushing a bit. "Oh, so it is." She noted quietly, holding out her hand to let the rain fall on it.

I knew that it was probably stupid to ask, but "Are you ok?" came out anyways.

"Yes, thank you." She answered immediately, and turned to me, a smile on her face. Finally, she seemed to notice the umbrella that I was still holding out to her. "You can use the umbrella, I don't want it." She offered.

"Are you sure?" I pulled on my ear with my free hand.

"Yep, I like the rain."

I grinned and put down the umbrella. "Well, so do I. Who needs umbrellas anyway?" I laughed and started marching forward, aware that she was following close behind. We walked for a while like that, and I put my hands behind my head – which, by the way, was slightly awkward with an umbrella in one of my hands – trying to think of where to take Namine that would occupy her long enough for Kairi to finish the party preparations.

"So where are we going?" Not a clue.

"Uh…We're going to the…uh…Well where are we?" I stopped and turned back to her.

She laughed. "You mean you don't even know where we are?"

"Hey, don't laugh! Buildings always look the same to me." It was real problem, you know. Buildings got me lost all of the time.

"Hm, I think that we're near the shopping district." She observed, looking around.

"Ok, right." Still no clue. "Umm…So she like the beach?"

"It's raining."

"Oh, oh, right. Ok, never mind." I tapped my chin in exaggerated thought. "Hmm, well she sometimes goes to the book store. Being all smart, and all." Somehow, I felt like it was stupid to compliment her when she wasn't even there.

"Ok," She smiled and nodded, and just stood there. What, did she think that I could get her there? 'Cause that wasn't going to happen. Unless she wanted to end up in some random alleyway or something, it wasn't a good idea to have me lead the pack. Or pair. Or…Us? Whatever.

I wanted to sneeze. "Um, I don't know where the book store is."

She took a deep breath and smiled. "Ok then, I'll lead the way."

* * *

Kairi wasn't at the book store, the mall, or the ice cream parlor. Shocker. But it had been a hour, so at the ice cream parlor I took the opportunity to call Kairi when Namine went to the bathroom.

"_No, I need at least thirty more minutes. _Minumum_."_

Groaning, I ran a hand down my face. "But why? I'm out of ideas of where to take her to 'look for you'!"

"_Well, where are you now?"_

"The ice cream shop."

"_Then buy her ice cream. As a birthday present."_ Came the slightly rushed suggestion.

"but I already spent almost all of my money on you today!"

"_You mean on her."_

"I mean on stupid streamers!" I smacked my forehead against the table, but kept it there, still talking on the phone. "I'm cold," I complained.

"_What? Sora, that doesn't have anything to do with _anything_."_

"Yes it does, it means that I shouldn't have ice cream. I could get pneumonia."

"…"

"Kairi?"

"_Sora, why do you always insist on being a baby?" _She groaned, sounding like my mom again. Well at the moment I felt like being a baby, my wallet was at stake.

"I'm not, I just don't wanna stall forever, you know?"

"_Yea well only, like, one person has arrived so, you'll have to for now. I'll text you when you can come back alright? Now just buy her a large and stay there for a while_!" Seriously, how long does it take to set up a birthday party? I mean, come on.

"A large? Are you kidding me, I-"

"Sora? Are you ok?" Namine's voice shut me up. I quickly snapped my phone shut and snapped up, slamming the back of my head into the blue wall on accident.

"Ow!" I rubbed the sore spot on my poor head. She giggled and slid across from me on the other side of the booth. "That hurt," I admitted. "Why are you laughing?"

She grinned. "Because you're funny."

"Well, that's obvious."

"No, I mean its funny how you keep trying to hide things whenever I walk up. Like everything's a big secret." She explained.

"Oh. Well…" I trailed off, looking at the wall on the other side of the room. "Everything is a big secret!" When in doubt, joke about it.

She laughed. "Oh, really?"

"Yes!" I winked at her. "See that old guy, over there? You know, the one with those big glasses?"

"Uh-huh?"

"Well he's a spy." I just went along with it. Because I was going to find every way possible to stall without spending the rest of my precious money. "You know, for a secret government. He's been sent to spy on us, and those big honking glasses of his are his super high-tech binoculars to spy on us with." Kairi had always thought that it was amazing how I could come up with crap like I did at the drop of a hat.

She nodded like she was buying every word of it, and I saw her eyes light up. She leaned in closer.

"And what about that woman over there with that young guy? Is she a spy too?"

"Oh no, she's the wife of a diplomat who's gotten bored with his lack of desire, so she's turned to her younger lover for comfort. He only loves her for her money." I couldn't believe that she was going along with this. Crazy.

"That poor lady," She sighed and leaned her head on her fist. But the she snapped out of it and pointed to a man with three little girls. "What's his story?"

"Oh him? He's a scientist who's just discovered a new medicine to cure squid cancer. He's testing it out on his kids."

She busted out laughing.

I couldn't help but smile. "Ok, your turn. What about her?" I pointed to a teenage girl fixing her make-up.

"Um…" She paused, thinking I guess. "She's really a forty-year-old man who was always so jealous of his first girlfriend's beauty that he's been obsessed with being a beautiful girl since he was eighteen." She decided.

I crackled loudly, making one or two people turn and glare. Geez, did the rain put everyone in a bad mood, or something? "That's great," I wiped a tear from my eye.

She smiled. "Thanks, I try."

I gave her a side-long glance, sizing her up. Suddenly I blurted out, "Wanna ice cream?"

She made eye-contact. "sure,"

"Ok," I clumsily got out of our booth and stood. It was surprisingly hard to do, but I guess I had dried to the seat, or something. "Come on, I'll pay." I promised. At the counter I ordered a large chocolate fudge Sunday with chocolate ice cream and fudge sticks added in. Hey, I know what I like. She ordered a small vanilla cone. Geez.

"Oh come on, you can order anything. Seriously." I prompted her with a nudge. Was she worried about her weight?

She smiled. "No, no," she insisted kindly.

"Come _on_, you'll make me feel fat if you don't!"

"Ok, fine. But I'm not happy about it." Her expression said the opposite, so I wasn't too worried. "Um, can I have gummy bears mixed in?"

"Great! Oh and make it a large too." I added and slapped my last twenty on the counter. The cashier took it and gave me back the change with an emotionless face. Talk about a walking, talking statue. The sky could've been raining fire and I bet that that guy wouldn't have even batted an eyelash. Well, anyways.

"No, I couldn't-"

"Chill, it's already paid for." I reassured her with a light pat on her head. Somehow, whether I liked it or not, I always seemed to end up doing exactly what Kairi wants me to. What a pain.

Right as the statue/cashier gave us our ice cream, Kairi texted me with the 'ok' to come back. Apparently everyone had showed up already, and only in forty minutes, too.

"Hey, you know what? We're going to be late, let's get going. You don't mind eating on the way, right?" I didn't let her say anything as I started marching for the door. It was still raining pretty hard outside. "I guess we'll have to use the umbrella to shield the ice creams from the rain." I muttered to myself.

"Sora, what are we going to be late for?"

"For your party, duh."

"My _party_?"

Oh, crap.

"Kairi's throwing me a party?" She groaned. "I knew it, I told her not to!" She rolled her eyes, stomped, and took a deep breath.

I winced. "Yeaaaah, and you're not supposed to know about it. Aha. Sorry." I rubbed the back of my neck. Darn habits. Kairi was going to kill me! And then she'd probably kill Roxas for being related to someone as stupid as me – not that I'm complaining – and then she'd kill Namine for hearing my heathen words! I saw my life briefly flash before my eyes. It was surprisingly short, but I'm not sure why it was surprising. I mean, I'm young right?

"I just specifically told her to not give me a party. That's the last thing that I want..." She trailed off. I took that as my cue to babble.

It just went on, and on, and _on_. I really wanted to rip my mouth out right about then. What an idiot.

"Um, Sora…"

Blah, blah, blah.

"Sora,"

Blaaaah, blah.

"Sora!" She half laughed, half yelled.

"What?" Somehow, the motor in my mouth died out, sort of. A miracle.

"Let's just forget about it, ok? You never told me and I never heard." She smiled. "Let's not even go. I mean, you can if you want to, I guess. But I'm not." She twirled a semi-dry strand of hair around her forefinger.

"Really? You don't wanna go?" My jaw dropped. So I paid almost _all_ of my money for something that _she didn't even want_? I could've ripped out all of my hair at that moment. But I was having a good hair day so I restrained myself. Barely.

"Nope?" She grinned shyly. "I'd rather just stay here and eat my ice cream." She admitted, holding up her now dripping cone. But the gummy bears looked pretty comfortable.

"Really?"

"Yep,"

"Kairi's gunna kill us," I narrowed my eyes at her. Was she suicidal or something? Because if she was, then there were surely faster, nicer ways to kill yourself.

"Yeah well I figure that she'd kill us anyway. Or you, at least, for spilling the big secret." Point taken. I could feel the doctor's bill giving me a paper cut already.

"…Let's just eat our ice cream."

* * *

**Is it bad that I laugh at some of my own writings? Yeah, I thought so too. Well, I'll **_**TRY**_** and update soon. This was going to be longer, but my brain stopped working. Sayonara peeps.**

**REVIEW PLEASE!**


	6. Bigmouth Strikes Again II

**A big thank you to caitlinkeitorin for proof reading this for me! :) And thank you, everyone who has reviewed or read my story!  
And remember how I said that there'd be a hint to what Namine's problem is? ;)**

**Nothing is mine.**

* * *

6: Bigmouth Strikes Again II

* * *

"Maybe he's only a little bit crazy, like painters, or composers, or some of those men in Washington."  
-Mr. Shellhammer

* * *

There they were. It was strange to see them together like that. He was so out-spoken, and she was so quiet. It didn't fit. But there it was, and they were laughing almost non-stop. He looked like an idiot next to her. I think that the red head next to me thought so too, because she was glaring at them through the glass. Then again, it might've just been the fact that the two inside the ice cream shop had decided to skip out on her surprise party. That might've been it.

She shifted her gaze to me. "I can't believe him," she started, but stopped and looked back. I looked back at the couple, too.

I couldn't believe no one noticed us, the two stalkers in the window.

"I'm going to kill him," she mumbled. "But… You know." Her tone changed, almost as if she had just remembered something interesting. I looked back at her. "He's just… Doing what I told him to."She started to sound less and less angry by the second.

I looked back at my cousin."What do you mean?" I decided to ask.

"I asked him to be Namine's friend, and that's exactly what he's doing." She sighed. "But he still skipped out on my party."

I grunted in response, my eyes sliding to the blonde. Her hair looked dry mostly, but with that slightly frizzed, clumped together look that meant she hadn't had an umbrella when it had started to rain. My stupid cousin obviously hadn't, either. Or he just didn't use it, I noted as my eyes fell on an umbrella leaning against the booth. It was the umbrella that I had leant Kairi when she had come to apologize.

"I can't believe he let her out in the rain." Yeah, she sounded mad again. "She's going to get sick. That _idiot_."

The venom in her voice was strange. It was like Sora had done something that no one else could understand the full extent of besides Kairi herself. I considered asking her what the big deal was, but she was already walking past me and pushing the door to the shop open. I quickly followed her, making sure that I remembered to close the umbrella that I was holding before I stepped in. She was already at their table, pounding her palms down in front of them.

Oh brother.

"What the heck are you guys doing?" She demanded as I walked up.

"Ack! Oh, um, h-hi Kairi." Sora grinned like an idiot and rubbed the back of his neck. Namine looked her straight in the eye.

"We're having ice cream. Sora was nice enough to buy me some. Wanna join us?" She offered evenly with an innocent smile.

Kairi seemed to remember that Namine wasn't supposed to know about the party, but I knew better. Like heck she didn't know; that look was too innocent and Sora's was too guilty. But Kairi didn't seem to realize that at first.

"Namine, I asked Sora to come over almost an hour ago. I called him ten times, but he just ignored me," she said through clenched teeth. That girl seriously needed to learn how to control herself.

"That's because I told him that I didn't want to go to the party," the blonde defended him.

"What? Sora, you told her?"

"_No_! I mean, well, not _really_. I mean, it just slipped out! I didn't _mean_ to, honest!" The brunette waved his hands in front of his face in defense. I rolled my eyes.

Namine frowned. "Kairi, I told you not to throw me a party. I told you that very specifically. That's the last thing that I want right now, ok?"

Kairi shifted her gaze to her friend, her anger leaving her face entirely.

"I know that you're trying to help, but that's the wrong way to help." The blonde took several deep breaths and rubbed her temples. She looked tired.

I think that the other two saw that, too. There was a strange moment where all three of us just stood there and watched her rub her temples. I felt sorry for her for some reason.

"Hey, Namine? Are you ok?" Sora spoke up, worry in his voice.

She took a moment before answering. "Yeah, I'm fine, thank you, Sora." She opened her eyes. Kairi looked more worried than either me or my cousin, but I guess she only showed it through the only way that she knew how: anger.

"Sora, why'd you take her out in the rain? I thought that you brought an umbrella." she demanded, leaning off the table and crossing her arms. "Don't you know that she could get sick?"

"Kairi-"

"No, Namine, we both know that that'd be bad! Sora doesn't have an excuse, and don't you try and defend him. He needs to _grow_ _up_."

I saw that Namine's eyes shifted to give Sora a pitying look. Said boy scooted out of the booth and stood up.

"Kairi, why don't you just chill out, ok? I mean _geez_, it's just a little bit of rain!" He sounded exasperated, as if he was sick and tired of defending himself against her and her continuous verbal attacks. I didn't blame him; I would be, too.

"No, it's not." She put her hands on her hips. I took a step forward. "You don't understand! None of you understand, not even you!" She directed the last part at Namine, who looked down at her hands. "Why do you keep doing this to yourself? Why do _I_ have to be the one who looks after you? Why won't you do it yourself? _Do you want to die_?" And then with tears in her eyes, she clamped her mouth shut, as if realizing what she had just said.

Silence filled the shop. Even the cashier was listening. All eyes shifted to Namine, including mine.

"What do you mean 'die'?" Sora asked slowly. Whether he asked Kairi or Namine didn't really matter.

Kairi's eyes were wide as saucers.

Namine, a deep blush of shame on her cheeks, slid out from the booth. Looking up, she met Kairi's eyes, then Sora's, and then mine. Then she looked down again. She took a deep breath. "She just means that I have a delicate constitution. I'm always getting sick. Kairi's nice enough to take care of me," she muttered, eyes still glued onto the floor.

Still, no one said anything.

Kairi sighed. "Namine-"

The blonde looked up at her friend and smiled. "No, it's ok. I'm a bit weak; I just like to pretend that I'm not. Thank you, Kairi. I'm sorry for worrying you." And then she didn't say anything else.

After a moment, Sora mumbled an "Oh," and added "I'm sorry for taking you out in the rain then, Namine."

She smiled. "No, it's ok. I still like the rain, no matter what. It was fun."

He gave her a grin. "Ok, cool, I had fun, too." It amazed me how quickly that guy could change his tune and act like nothing had happened. He really was stupid, but the change in mood seemed to help the blonde somewhat. Kairi's mood just seemed to darken. She angrily wiped her eyes as if something was irritating them.

"Kairi-" Sora moved to place a hand on her shoulder, but she swatted him away.

"What, Sora? I'm going to go apologize to the cashier." And with that she stomped off. I shifted my eyes back to the blonde.

I didn't know if I really believed Namine or not, but she seemed to be telling the truth, and she also didn't seem like a girl who would just lie about something like that. So after a moment, I decided that I believed her. She turned to me on our way out of the shop as Kairi apologized to the cashier for the outburst.

"Roxas, sorry about this whole thing. It must be very annoying to come to some strange city where all everyone does is fight." She smiled apologetically at me.

"It's fine." I didn't really know what to say. "I'm used to it." She really had no idea, but I tried to give her a smile anyway. Poor girl.

"Oh my gosh, what just happened?" Sora popped up by our side. "You got my cousin to smile! Namine, you're a miracle worker!" He waved his arms in the air and shook her lightly.

The smile slid off my face with a crash.

"Idiot."

* * *

"Hey." I poked Namine on the shoulder. She had been sleeping, curled up in a ball against the bus window. Sora had sat next to her on purpose that time, but he had jumped when he had seen her sleeping. Leaping up, he ran off the bus like the idiot that he was. He looked stupidly embarrassed. I rolled my eyes.

"Hm? What?" She groggily rubbed her eye.

"It's time to get off the bus," I told her.

Kairi spoke up from behind me. "Come on, Nam."

She yawned. "Oh, ok."

That girl was so strange. She was so tired and yet the sun had just started to go down.

"Hey, are you guys coming?" My cousin's spiky brunette head popped back in the bus.

"In a minute, Sora. Geez." Kairi waved him off. "Now come on, Namine. Get up so that we can leave."

She nodded, "Ok, ok," and stood up. But she wavered, putting a hand to her head. Kairi and I both started at once, and I grabbed her by the elbow.

"Hey, are you ok?" I asked.

At first she didn't say anything. I raised an eyebrow. "Huh? What'd you say?" The blonde suddenly snapped out of it. "Come on guys, we don't wanna stick around for the next stop." She took a deep breath and gently pulled herself out of my grasp, exiting the bus at a normal pace. Kairi and I exchanged looks.

"What was that?" I asked, my elbow resting on the back of a seat. Her face was suddenly guarded.

"How should I know?" she demanded. "Let's go. You're blocking my way."

Rolling my eyes, I complied and got off the bus. I stepped in a large puddle as soon as I stepped onto the ground. Groaning, I turned to warn the redhead behind me. "Hey, watch your step. There's a-" And then my pants got splashed again when she hit the puddle with even more force than I had.

"Ugh! Gross!" she yelped, jumping out of the puddle. She blushed as Namine giggled. "Why didn't anyone tell me that there was a puddle?" She complained, but her eyes were on me as she said it.

I shrugged. It wasn't worth the effort.

"Ugh," she repeated, shaking off her shoe.

"Huh? Oh hey, I love puddles!" Sora decided at that moment to be a complete retard and ran off in the direction of Kairi's house, jumping on every puddle he came across. I wanted to smack my forehead. How could I be related to someone that utterly _stupid_? At least it had stopped raining.

Pausing as if he had had a second thought, Sora stopped in the middle of one of the puddles and turned back. He opened his mouth to say something, but reconsidered it. He started to turn back, but apparently he changed his mind again and spun back around.

"Hey Namine, wanna jump in the puddles with me?" He asked like a five-year-old who wanted his mother to look at a finger painting.

"She does not!" Kairi answered for her, hands on her hips.

Namine laughed. "Ok!" And she jogged to catch up to him, and then jumped in a nearby puddle. The puddle duo continued on like that, splashing into everything that they could. I felt my frown lighten. But just a bit.

Kairi looked torn between amusement and frustration. "That girl," she mumbled to herself.

"Relax," I added my two-cents. "I'm pretty sure that splashing in puddles won't kill her."

Her head jerked around towards me, and I had the feeling that she had forgotten that I had been there. The frustration in her eyes subsided a bit when we made eye contact, and she turned to look at the backs of her two friends. But she didn't say anything.

She started walking home, making sure to avoid the puddles. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I fell into step next to her.

No one said anything.

"Don't you ever," she started, tugging on some strands of her hair. "You know, want to say something?" She didn't look at me.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean all that you ever say is 'yes', 'no', or 'whatever'. Don't you ever want to hold an actual conversation?" She sighed. I could tell that she was having a hard time picking and choosing her words, as if she was afraid to offend me.

"I have things to say," I shrugged. "I just say them to the people who'd actually listen."

She was silent.

"Oh."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Why? What made you ask?" She looked at me, but her face was carefully neutral. Like a liar.

"No reason. I was just wondering is all. You're sort of like Namine like that, I guess." She sighed.

"No, I don't think that she's like that," I said slowly. "She just…Doesn't want to hurt people, I guess. I don't know." I ruffled my hair.

I almost didn't catch it. A smile cracked on one corner of her mouth. She quickly twisted her head to hide it.

"What?"

She waved me away. "Nothing." But she was still looking the other way.

"No, seriously, what?" I prodded.

She turned to look straight ahead, but I could see the small smile then. She gave me a sidelong glance. "You looked just like a little kid when you did that," she explained.

I gave her a look. "Did what?"

"When you ruffled your hair." She looked at me full on, and she was smiling openly. "It was funny."

How was I supposed to respond to that? There she was, miss grumpy mother hen smiling and telling me that I had looked like a kid. Was I supposed to be insulted? She was in a bad mood, I could tell, but she was still making an effort with me. Was that weird? I mean, For someone like her. I thought that it was weird. But let me tell you, that smile looked so much better on her than that frown. But I still didn't know what to say.

"Uhh, is that good or bad?" I ended up asking.

"You tell me."

Maybe to a normal person that wasn't something strange to say, but it seemed pretty strange to me. She must've been getting a fever or something.

"Hey, guys!" Sora called from Kairi's top step, which had just come into view as we turned a corner. Both Sora and Namine's legs were soaked up to the knees. "We're locked out! We've been waiting forever!"

And immediately Kairi was back to her normal self. "Well maybe if you hadn't have been in such a hurry you wouldn't have had to wait!" Kairi called back, annoyed, but not overly so. She rolled her eyes and went to unlock the door. Sora gave me a glare, which I ignored.

I decided that I'd ignore my earlier conversation with Kairi, too.

* * *

Back at Sora's house, I made a beeline for the guest room in which I was currently living. More than anything I wanted my own room and my own bed, but that was as close as I was going to get for the next couple of months. What a depressing thought. Pulling off my shoes, I plopped down onto the bed, burying my face into my pillow. What a weird day. But there was something about the Namine girl, something that I wanted to find out. Sora was just an idiot. I didn't want to think about Kairi, or her weird behavior.

A knock on my door jarred me from my thoughts.

"What?" I lifted my head out of my pillow.

Without a word, Sora swung open the door, looking sort of pissed. I sat up on the bed.

"What do you want?" I asked warily.

"I want to know what happened today," he declared as if it was obvious. Obviously not.

I was too tired for this. "What do you mean?"

"With Kairi," he clarified. "Why was she all smiley when you guys came up to her house today?" He kept his hand fisted around the doorknob.

Rolling my eyes, I shrugged. "I don't know. She wasn't all smiley to me." Not exactly true, but whatever.

His eyebrows knitted together. "She was. Trust me." He paused. "I don't want you hanging out with her."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"Fine,"

"Fine?"

"Yes, fine."

He scratched his head. "But… Don't you wanna hang out with her?"

I shrugged. "She's just another girl."

"She's not just another girl!" Sora burst. "She's _Kairi_."

"Really? I hadn't noticed." I crossed my arms and raised my eyebrows. What an idiot.

"She's smart," he continued on as if I hadn't interrupted. "And she's pretty. And she's strong willed, and she's amazing." He kept on defended her. Did I seriously need this list? Yeah, she was pretty, but not overly so. She seemed smart, but it's not like she was a genius or anything. And strong willed? Oh man would I hate to have to deal with her 'strong will' for the rest of my life. None of that sounded amazing to me.

"Ok, yeah, great." I ran a hand over my face. "I'll stay away from her. Goodbye."

Sora stopped talking and narrowed his eyes at me. "Don't talk to her at all, got it?"

"Got it," I said irritably. Like he could even have any control over anything like that.

"Ok…" And with that, he slowly shut my door, and left me alone in that guest room of his. I groaned and ruffled my hair again.

"_You looked just like a little kid when you did that."_

And suddenly I paused, my hand still on my head. Kairi was causing me more trouble than she was worth. I mean, what did that guy see in her?

"_It was funny."_

Groaning, I flipped back onto my bed and covered my eyes with my arm. I was crazy. I needed sleep, and obviously I needed it badly. Taking a deep breath, I listened to the silence, trying to put myself to sleep. I heard Sora and his mom in the kitchen downstairs, probably eating dinner.

I moved my arm and stared at the dark, shadowy ceiling, because otherwise, when I closed my eyes, I could still see that small smile in the corner of my eye. It was totally stupid.

Was I going crazy?

"_You tell me."_

* * *

I made myself stay as still as possible, trying to keep my breathing steady as if I was still sleeping. My eyes were glued to the popcorn ceiling, watching the small needles of street-lights that shone through the shades, and I waited for the sun to come all of the way up. My body was still on my school-schedule, which had me waking up even earlier than usual here, seeing as Twilight Town was a few hours behind where I came from. A siren sounded a few blocks down.

I counted the shadows of the ceiling.

My father traveled into my mind, with nothing else to really think about. He was probably the last thing in the world that I wanted to think about. He's lucky that I even still used the word '_Father'_ even if it was just in my head. Some father.

What kind of father dumps his son with some family members who he had only met once before in his life? For the whole summer?

What kind of father tells his son that "All men leave home; you're lucky I've babied you this much." When his son begs him not to make him go?

What kind of father has the nerve to shut himself up all by himself when his wife dies?

Who had the nerve to even act like he cared, like he was heart-broken, when he had cheated on her?

Who had the nerve to keep those same mistresses even a whole year afterwards?

Who had the nerve to just forget about their child?

What kind of man _did_ that?

My father's kind of man.

Something made a dull thud somewhere outside my door, which brought my thoughts to a jagged crash. Holding my breath, I closed my eyes and listened. I heard it again, only it sounded like footsteps padding down the stairs. Only Sora and I slept upstairs, so it had to be him. Debating on whether or not I even cared enough to get up, I opened my eyes and stared back at the ceiling.

Looking over at my bedside table, I saw the red letters on the alarm clock glowing _6:21_.

Well, there was nothing else to do.

Pushing myself up into a sitting position on the bed, I flung off the sheets and slid off the bed. Pulling on a pair of pants, I threw a hand through my messy hair. Running a hand down my face, I slid out of my room as quietly as I could. Sora's door was just slightly ajar, but there was no light on downstairs.

Padding over to the railing, I leaned over to see if I could see any lights on or anything. Nope, nothing.

Not really knowing why I was even investigating this so much, I shuffled down the stairs, aware that I was being louder than I intended. But that was just the sleepiness that hadn't worn off.

The kitchen was quiet, everything dark except for the artificial lights coming in from outside. The dining room to my right and hallway behind me were equally dark and lifeless.

A sort of rustling sound came from the living room. Turning around the corner, I froze when I saw my cousin sitting back-to-back with a certain red head. They both had cups with some sort of drink in them, and they were watching the sun rise down the street and between the buildings. They were pretty quiet, not really saying anything. Sora leaned over to whisper something, but Kairi jabbed him in the back, shutting him up with a small yelp. It seemed as if they really were more than friends.

I didn't really know why, but it seemed as if that moment required, deserved privacy. But for some reason, I couldn't seem to give it. I just stood there, spying on them.

Moments passed, and then minutes. They weren't saying anything, and I barely dared to breathe.

My cousin ruffled his hair a bit, and Kairi leaned her head back on him, making him freeze. He was way too obvious like that. She place her mug down on the coffee table behind them, almost in my direction, and turned back towards him. He just set his mug down on the floor next to him.

I knew what was coming, I could practically smell it. I knew that I should've left.

But like I said, I just stood there, glued to that stupid spot.

Kairi twisted around so that she was mostly facing Sora, who had turned around as well. She leaned herself up against his chest, tilting her head up so that she could get a clear look at his face. Of course, that clear look was only really several inches apart. I could only see his face from where I was, but his face ears and neck were deep red. I watched warily as his right arm wrapped around the small of her back and as he carefully placed his left hand on her neck.

I happened slower than I had thought it would. It seemed as if time stopped for a long time, just to stretch out my awkwardness.

And then she crashed her lips against his, she was harsh against him, as if she had waited far too long to kiss my cousin, who seemed too shocked to move at first. And then he got into it, and he returned the kiss, and got more aggressive with it. In a matter of moments they were sprawled out on the floor making out.

And I was still standing there, feeling the heavy discomfort weigh down on me, with an extreme sense that I shouldn't be seeing that.

I sniffed quietly.

Was I supposed to feel rude?

Was I supposed to feel mad?

Was I supposed to feel jealous?

Because I felt something, but I was pretty sure that it wasn't any of those. Rudeness required me to say something rude, which I hadn't. Anger required someone to say something rude to me, which hadn't happened. And jealousy required that I be interested in the red head on more of a level than I cared to admit. So I decided that it couldn't be any of those, and I wouldn't let it be even if it was.

The two love birds didn't see me, but I finally managed to get my butt into gear and back away from the gross scene. Turning around I shuffled my way upstairs and back into my room. I flopped face-first onto my bed and closed my eyes.

But when I closed them, all I could see was a red head kissing a brunette. That was slightly annoying.

* * *

**A/N: So Yeah, I'm sorry that it always takes me so long to update. But after this I'm not apologizing anymore. XD So I was going to finish this as Roxas went to sleep, but I realized that this was way too short of a chapter, so I added this last scene in there. ;3 Feel free to draw your own conclusions. Also a bit more about his family situation, which may or may not be important...**

**Thank you guys so much for reading this!  
And please review. Seriously.**


	7. Fools in Love

**A huge thank you to Caitlinkeitorin for proof-reading this for me! :D**

**Nothing is mine.**

7: Fools in Love…

* * *

"Relationships-of all kinds-are like sand held in your hand.  
Held loosely, with an open hand, the sand remains where it is.  
The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on, the sand trickles through your fingers.  
You may hold onto some of it, but most will be spilled. A relationship is like that.  
Held loosely, with respect and freedom for the other person, it is likely to remain intact.  
But hold too tightly, too possessively, and the relationship slips away and is lost."  
_-_ Kaleel Jamison

* * *

As soon as the door shut, maybe even before, the spawn practically ran upstairs and slammed the guest room door in the quietest way possible while still being a slam. I don't know how he did that; my mom always got me in trouble for slamming the door, no matter how quiet I was. But then again he was a guest, and my mom was like a saint to anyone outside of the family. Huh, total lie.

I considered following him, but dropped the idea for a second while I took off my shoes. Then I picked the idea back up again and marched my butt up to his room. No light came from under the door, but I knocked on it anyways. If he was sleeping, well then tough luck.

"What?" came from the other side of the door. I didn't like his attitude.

I swung open the door, trying to look as intimidating as possible. Who knows how that went? I almost didn't want to know.

He eyed me. "What do you want?" he demanded. The punk.

"I want to know what happened today." I mean really, he couldn't guess why I was there? Come on.

He just stared at me for a moment. "What do you mean?"

I rolled my eyes. "With Kairi, why was she all smiley when you guys came up to her house today?" I kept my hand around the doorknob. My knuckles were turning white.

"I don't know. She wasn't all smiley to me." He rolled his eyes right back at me. Yeah right, as if he hadn't noticed that. He was playing dumb, but I didn't buy it for a second. Well except in general. Then he really was dumb.

"She was. Trust me." I frowned and then added, "I don't want you hanging out with her." I knew that Kairi would kill me for restricting anyone's access to her, but this wasn't for her. It was for me. My stupid blonde cousin was laying the moves down on Kairi and I was sick and tired of it. He needed to see when a girl was taken. Well, taken in a _way_…sort of.

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you serious?"

I really hated him. "Yes."

"Fine,"

"Fine?"

"Yes, Fine." Was is just me or was this almost funny to him?

"But…don't you wanna hang out with her?" I wondered, scratching my head. This guy was seriously confusing. I wasn't really related to such a weirdo, was I?

He shrugged. "She's just another girl."

How could he say that? "She's not just another girl! She's _Kairi_!" I bellowed, my voice raising enough so that I heard my mom tell me to be quiet. Whatever.

He crossed his arms and gave me one of those _oh-I'm-just-so-much-better-than-you_ looks. "Really? I hadn't noticed."

I just wanted to punch him. "She's smart," I added. "And she's pretty. And she's strong-willed, and she's amazing." I just knew that he had noticed that, all of that. And I just knew that he liked her, I just knew it. Because no guy could walk by and talk to her for more than five seconds without totally falling in love with her. It just wasn't possible.

He ran a hand over his face. "Ok, yeah, great. I'll stay away from her. Goodbye."

I studied him for a few seconds. I really wasn't satisfied. "Don't talk to her at all, got it?"

"Got it," he snapped.

"Ok…" I said slowly, not believing him for one second. It didn't take long for me to see that he would probably do the exact opposite thing that people told him to do. What a punk. But there was nothing else that I could really do or say, so I slowly shut his door, leaving him to his little dark cave, or whatever. I thought that I heard a soft groan of annoyance from the other side. Well that just made two of us, didn't it?

* * *

Summer was supposed to be the best time of year, right? Well you know what, whoever said that had no idea what they were talking about. For one thing, the summer was going to consist of my cousin inhabiting my house. And another, I was pretty sure that the love of my life was practically in love with said cousin. Third, I had absolutely nothing else to do in the world besides either having to endure my love flinging herself at that blonde devil, or my summer homework. I had never been so tempted by homework in my life.

Things like that called for a visit to my therapist. Sort of.

"Oh. Hey Sora, Kairi's not here right now," Xion said as she opened the door, but invited me inside anyways. I followed her into their kitchen. Their mother, who spent the most time in that room, had made sure that all of the large yellow windows had some view of the sea. Not too hard, since they were almost at the top of the huge hill that was Twilight Town.

"Actually," I mentioned as I hopped up onto one of their counters. "I came here to see you."

She lifted an eyebrow and had an amused look on her face. "Oh really? What's up?"

"Well, I can't really tell Kairi about this, so I figured since you're her sister…" I trailed off and leaned back, folding my arms.

"Uh huh." She laughed. "Get off the counter, you big baby." She was surprisingly strong and she neatly slid my butt off of the granite top.

"Hey! I was comfortable there," I moaned.

She laughed. "Just tell me what wrong." And then she started getting some food items out, getting ready to make some sort of meal.

I sighed and slumped down into one of the chairs positioned around their informal dinner table. "Well, it's actually _about_ Kairi…"

"Let me guess, you're getting jealous of the way that she's taking to your cousin?"

"Wah?"My mouth dropped. I obviously chose the right therapist; she could read minds. "How'd you know?" I demanded, not really bothering to pretend like that hadn't been it.

She shrugged. "It doesn't take more than two seconds of being around you guys to see that she likes him, and that you hate him for it." She glanced back at me. "But you shouldn't be; I don't think that he even really notices. He's too wrapped up in his own emo world." She paused for a second, and then added, "But I'm pretty sure that she doesn't notice that you like her, either."

I groaned, rubbing my face with my hand. "Yeah, I know. How can she overlook something like this?" I complained, letting my head fall to the table.

"Something like your crush? It's not that uncommon."

"_Nooo_, it's not a crush." I couldn't believe that I was preparing to say what I was preparing to say out loud. And to her sister, no less.

She turned towards me and leaned back against the counter. "Then what is it?"

No way, I had gone way too far, I wasn't going to say anything else.

"Sora?"

I sniffed hopelessly. "…love." I mumbled in a mouse's voice, completely unmanly. I just wanted to crawl in a hole and die.

She was silent for a moment. And then she burst out laughing, gripping her sides. I sprang up in a huff, with a blush and a frown on my face.

"Xion! Don't _laugh_, I'm _serious_!" How rude. Didn't she have any sympathy for a hopeless romantic like me? And yet it took her another minute or so to calm down and get a hold of herself. Completely insensitive.

"I'm sorry," She gasped after a second. "It's just that…_you_...saying those things which you obviously have no clue about." She smiled sympathetically and straightened up.

"I do have a clue!"

She _psh_ed. "Obviously not. Because you don't love Kairi."

"Yes I do!"

"No, you don't."

"_Yes_, I do!"

"Nope."

"_Yes!_"

She laughed. "Sorry to burst your bubble, but outside of my family I've only seen one friend that's ever really loved her, and not even in the way that you claim to," she confessed and turned back around to her cooking. I waited for her to continue, but she didn't. Did I have to ask for everything? Seriously?

"Well, who loves Kairi if not me?" I asked irritably.

"Her friend, Namine. I've never seen a girl so devoted to her friend, like Kairi's her mother. It's really something," she answered, but as she said it there was something there, in her voice. Something like…sadness? Pity?

I didn't say anything at first. Namine loved Kairi more than me? Well, in a way that made sense, them being best friends and all. But what about me, wasn't I her best friend too? And why was Kairi like her mother? Why was there something in everyone's voice when they mention Namine, something that everyone seemed to know except me? But Namine had told us yesterday at the ice cream shop. So why did it still seem like there was a secret? And, darn it, _why_ was it so frustrating not to know?

"Um, Xion…" I pulled on my ear. "What's up with Namine?"

"Hm? Oh." She paused again, and looked at me. "I don't know. Only a couple of people do."

"Like who? Who knows? Is it just that she gets sick easily?" I just had to know.

She shrugged. "I don't know. If you want to know, the best thing to do would be to ask her yourself," she suggested and turned back to her cooking. "Why are you so interested?" she added.

"Oh." I had no clue. "Um, well, she's my friend. I'm just looking out for her, you know. Aha." Seriously, I needed to make a mental note to stop lying. Or at least learn how to do it successfully.

"Uh huh. Well, Kairi's not going to be home for a while," she said evenly.

I tilted my head to the side. "So?"

She chuckled. "So that's your cue to leave, Mr. Romeo." She turned and winked at me before resuming cooking whatever it was that she was cooking. "See you later. I'll have her call you if I see her, ok?"

"Oh, no, that's ok," I said, turning to leave. "It's probably better if she doesn't know if I was over here confessing my love to her sister."

"Very true."

And with that, I got kicked out of my therapist's house. Ok, so wrong choice in therapist. But good choice? But wrong choice. Yep, definitely wrong choice, mostly. I mean, what kind of therapist laughs at you? Or tells you that you don't really feel what you know you feel? Or kicks you out of her house in the first place? I needed a new therapist.

* * *

"Hey, Namine!"

Said girl jumped about ten feet in the air, obviously not expecting someone to call out her name. Or she could've just been surprised to see me, seeing as we weren't the best of friends or anything.

"Hello Sora." She smiled and took a deep breath, a hand over her heart. "No offense, but how do you know where I live?" she asked after a second.

"Oh." I grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of my neck. "Yeah, sorry about that. I asked Kairi, she told me where it was, and I would've been here sooner, but I got lost." I laughed. So what if it had taken me an hour to get there instead of the supposed twenty minutes. I got there, didn't I?

She smiled. "No, it's fine. I just didn't expect you to be here is all."

"Where are you going?" I blurted out. I wasn't really sure how I was going to go about it, but I was pretty sure that I was going to follow Xion's advice, even if I didn't want to. I wanted to be sure that I knew what was wrong with her, even if it was just because I was being nosey.

She hesitated, and she sighed. "I was just going to the park, I guess."

I furrowed my eyebrows, but didn't say anything. "Well, want to hang out?" I offered after a second.

"Sure." She smiled easily. "But what would we do?"

"Oh, um…" Darn, I hadn't thought that far ahead. "We could, um…" She stared at me, waiting for an answer. "I don't know." I admitted.

"How about the boardwalk?" she suggested politely. Somehow she made it feel like I was about to go out on a Sunday luncheon instead of just hang out with a friend.

"Sure." I nodded and looked all around me. "Do you know which way it is?"

She laughed and pointed to her left. "I only live a couple of blocks away. How could you miss it?" True to her word, the beach was visible from her house. So logically the boardwalk would have to be nearby. Strange that I hadn't noticed it there before.

"Oh, ok, great. Lead the way." I grinned and fell into step next to her. Putting my hands behind my head, I started to feel bad about my idea. I mean, who was I, some old busybody grandmother with nothing better to do with my time? Geez.

"Why are you pouting?" she asked, leaning over a bit so as to get a good look at my face.

I jumped. "I wasn't pouting!" I defended myself, turning slightly away and bringing my hands down. I shoved them into my pockets.

She smiled sweetly at me and took a deep breath. "Ok, my bad." And she looked away from me. I took a peek back at her.

So the entire walk to the boardwalk, all three blocks of it, passed in silence like that. I felt bad for asking to hang out with her and then just sort of ignoring her. But she had this peaceful look on her face, like she didn't mind. I guess I minded more than she did.

"So, where do you want to go first?" she asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Oh, uh, I don't care." I avoided the decision.

She crossed her arms in playful annoyance. "Now come on, Sora, you were the one who asked to hang out. It can't be that hard to choose a stall to go into can it? It's ok, I don't mind which one we go into." She finished by uncrossing her arms and smiling.

That girl was always smiling.

It was really easy to copy some of her good mood, and with a shrug and a grin I complied and directed us into a hat shop. Not like I could fit into a hat with my hair the way it was. She laughed as I tried on a beanie hat but utterly failed. She looked funny in a cowboy hat which was too big for her head. We then moved onto the next shop, which had bathing suits, where we both agreed that the Speedos and bikinis didn't fit our style. Then it was an old CD shop, which had everything from the obscure to the completely obscure. Apparently she had a thing for the Beatles, which I thought was funny.

"What do you mean, _'that's funny'_?" She demanded in a huff, clutching one of their CDs. "They're classic!"

I pried the CD from her hand and looked at it. "Nope," I said, tossing it back to her. "It just looks like a bunch of old guys to me."

"You have no taste for culture!"

I ended up buying her that CD. Something about my debt to music culture or something. She was as sneaky as Kairi when it came to getting money out of me, I swear. Well anyways, after that we continued down shop-by-shop. I bought myself a pair of purple sunglasses, which I broke about five minutes after leaving the shop.

"What? This is a cheap knock-off!" I cried as I held up one of the lenses that had popped out.

She giggled. "That's what you get for buying three dollar glasses."

I nudged her wish a smirk. "Shut up."

I don't really know how long we hung out like that, but it must've been a long time, because eventually the sun started setting. Well of course it started setting, but you know what I mean.

"Hey, look!" I pointed over to where a man was selling cotton candy.

"What about it?" Namine asked, confused.

"What some?"

She chuckled but shook her head. "No, thanks."

I looked at her like she was crazy, which she was. "Are you kidding me? Who doesn't want cotton candy? I'm going to get you some," I decided and marched over to where the cotton candy man was. I heard her lightly protesting behind me. After I got two bags, one pink and one blue, I marched back over to where she was standing, a tolerating smile plastered on her face.

"Here you go," I said with a grin as I handed her the pink bag. Something about how I had gone against what she had told me to do was kind of funny to me.

She rolled her eyes- "Thanks, Sora"-and took the bag.

As the sun started falling, the crowd thinned out surprisingly fast. It seemed like no one was too keen on being eaten alive by the moths and other bugs that came out at night. Namine didn't seem to mind, though. I was so absorbed with eating my cotton candy that I almost didn't notice as she wandered off to the railing that overlooked the beach below. There was a bench to her right. I started after her, but hesitated. She sighed and tucked some hair behind her ear with the hand that wasn't holding the bag of cotton candy. She almost looked like she just wanted to be alone.

But she turned back and looked at me. "Come on, Sora." She waved me over. "You don't want to miss this view."

I complied, coming up next to her on her left. I hopped up on the tall wooden railing so that my stomach was laying flat on it. I leaned over and looked at the beach right below me.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to see if anybody is making out down there," I answered without thinking. Then it occurred to me that that probably wasn't a one hundred percent appropriate thing to say to her.

"Why would they do that?" She didn't seem to notice.

I got off the railing and looked over at her. "Because that's what they do around there, they make out at sunset. Usually it's seniors only." I laughed and pulled on my ear. "It's stupid." Yeah, stupid in the _'I've-had-dreams-about-me-and-Kairi-making-out-down-there'_ sort of way.

"Oh," she said, hopping up like I had and peering over for a moment before hopping back down. "There are people there!" she said as if she had just walked in on a dark secret. She had a light blush on her cheeks.

I chuckled. "Yeah, sorry, I forgot to mention that." And I turned to look out at the sunset, which glowed all different shades of orange and blood red. Almost ominous, if not pretty, but not exactly a sky that I'd want to be kissing under. I'd be too afraid that I'd get killed, or something.

We both stood there for who knows how long, but I was pretty happy. She was too, or at least it looked like it.

"Hey, Sora?"

"Yep?"

She turned her head towards me and gave me the deepest, saddest look that I'd ever seen anyone give me. "How old are you?"

"Huh?" What kind of question was that to ask with that sort of face? "I'm sixteen," I answered.

After a minute she smiled a bit and looked down the other side of the boardwalk. Her hair looked a strange lemon color in the light. "When's your birthday?"

"October twenty-fifth," I said easily. "Why?"

She shrugged, still looking the other way. When she turned back towards me, she had a big smile on her face. "I'll have to remember that," she decided to herself.

But I was worried. I hadn't realized it before then that that was it, but I was worried. I had been worried ever since I had talked to Xion earlier that day. Maybe even a little since the ice cream shop. And Namine wasn't helping me at all. She just sat there smiling and being nice, but I wasn't sure if she meant it. Heck, I smiled all of the time, I should know that smiling didn't always equal being ok. But I wanted to believe her. I wanted to blow it off and just leave it at what she had told us all at the ice cream parlor the day before. That would've been so much easier. So why couldn't I just let it go?

Because she was my friend, I guess.

"Hey, Nam," I said, not really noticing the nickname that I had just given her. "Are you ok?"

She took a deep breath, and had a faraway look in her eyes and she shook her head slightly. "I'm tired, and a bit dizzy." She glanced over. "Could you take me home?"

I nodded immediately. "Sure."

I led her away and back towards her house. Well ok, she led us back to her house. I wouldn't have been able to remember the way if my life had depended on it. I wouldn't admit it to anyone, but I was sad to leave that spot, as creepy as the sunset was. It was nice to stand there and stare at her hair, at her skin, at that possibly fake smile. And her eyes had been beautifully dark in that lighting. She had been beautiful.

I just wouldn't ever admit that, because it didn't mean anything, but other people would get the wrong idea if I told them.

But I would've told her, if she had asked.

As I said goodbye to her, as I watched her walk up to and disappear into her house, I knew that was true. Whatever my relationship was or wasn't with her, if she had asked me, I would've told her exactly how she had looked back on the boardwalk. Because I knew that girl deserved to hear that truth, and often.

I clutched the bag of my remaining cotton candy in my hand as I slowly made the hike home.

* * *

It was dark before I managed to find my way home again. Seriously, you'd think after living here almost my whole life that I'd be able to find my way around town. Nope, that was apparently too much to ask. But my mom had a curfew, see, ever since that one incident with Riku and the New Year's Eve party two years ago. That was a long story that mostly had to do with directions, the police, and a whole lot of toilet paper. Bad days, let me tell you, bad days. So anyway, the point was that I was always supposed to be home by the time the sun went down. But I hadn't even dropped Namine off at her house until the sun was almost all of the way down.

So boy was I going to be in for it.

Of course, if nothing else I was going to try to get out of it. Maybe I could just sneak up to my room and pretend that I had been there for the last hour. Well, it was worth a shot.

I creaked open my front door, which of course chose at that exact moment to speak loudly. I froze, but no one was in the living room or the kitchen as far as I could tell, so I hurried in and shut the door as quietly as it would let me. Tip toeing as fast as I could without totally tripping over myself, I got to the stairs before I noticed my spawn of a cousin staring at me. He had the refrigerator open, but was just standing there, as if he was waiting for me to do something stupid. Well sorry to disappoint you! I mean him. Whatever.

I stared back at him for a whole minute before he raised an eyebrow and asked, "What are you doing?"

"What are you doing?" I blurted out the first words that came to mind.

"Looking for food." He deadpanned, shutting the fridge door. "What are you doing?" he repeated.

I glared. "What's it to you?"

He ignored me. "Were you with," he hesitated for a split second, "her?"

It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. "With who?" How the heck did he know that I had been hanging out with Namine? Was he a special breed of psychic idiot?

This time he didn't hesitate. "With Kairi," he clarified.

Huh? "Huh? Why would you ask that?" I scratched my head.

"Well were you?"

I felt my anger rise. "That's none of your business who I was with!" I mean geez, how nosey was this guy? And why was he suddenly my mother?

He glared at me for a few more seconds, and I could see him turn something over in his mind. Apparently deciding something, he waved me off with an annoyed flick of his wrist. "Whatever, never mind," he mumbled angrily, and stomped out of the kitchen and into the living room. "It doesn't matter."

What an idiot. "Geez," I grumbled, stomping up the stairs. It only occurred to me that I had been trying to be sneaky at the top of the stairs. Crap. But my mom hadn't seemed to have heard, so I shuffled into my room and slammed the door shut.

I plopped down onto my chair and yanked my phone out of my pocket. I went straight to Riku in my contacts, but hesitated. I didn't really feel like talking to my grumpy friend. I had my very own unending source of grumpiness downstairs eating all of my food.

So I scrolled up until it said 'Kairi' and pressed send.

Why was I even calling her? I guess I needed to have my fill of Kairi after spending so much time with every other girl currently in my life. But something was whispering in my head and heart, something that just wanted to make sure that her voice could still make me stupidly giddy and just plain stupid. I mean, I guess that I knew that she still could, but I just wanted to make sure. Just because.

"_Hello_?" She sounded like she had been on the verge of sleeping. "_Hellooo_?"

"Oh," I pulled on my ear. "Hey Kai, it's me, Sora. Did I wake you up?"

"_Nope_." She sighed. "_I was just…talking to someone_."

Did I smell a secret? "Who?" Since when had I become such a busybody? I mean really.

She didn't answer at first. "_Riku_," she admitted finally.

"Oh, ok? So why do you sound so upset?"

"_I'm not upset, Sora_," she barked out on the other end. "_Stop reading so much into everything I say. God_."

I rolled my eyes and sank back into my chair. "Geez, ok. Sorry." But I wasn't really, because I knew that I had been right.

"_So why are you calling anyways?_"

"Do I need a reason to talk to you?"

She sighed. "_Sorry. I've just been stressing a bit lately."_

I felt myself smile a bit. "Yeah, I've noticed. I can't have more than a five-minute conversation with you without you barking at me." I laughed but she didn't so I shut up.

"_Sora,_" she began. I resisted the urge to groan. "_You couldn't seriously have been expecting me to totally forget the first morning of summer, could you?_"

"Um…well, you said that you would." Seriously, did we have to talk about this? My ears were already burning from embarrassment.

"_Yeah, I did, but I can't. I want to have it out with you Sora, once and for all. But I don't want to do it over the phone._" Oh great. It was like I was being broken up with, only not even really because you had to be together to break up.

After a moment I asked, "Will this totally screw us up?"

She sighed. "_I don't know, Sora. Maybe. But I'd rather just have everything out in the open, ok? Because I'm tired of acting as oblivious as I seem to be._" So much for Xion's '_She-doesn't-realize-that-you-like-her'_ theory. Might as well add it to her failures as my therapist.

I didn't say anything. So much for a nice conversation with the girl that I loved. I rubbed my eyes repeatedly. "Ok, sure. Fine." It came out harsher than I had meant it to.

She paused. I could almost see her debating whether or not to say whatever it was that she wanted to say. "_You sounded like your cousin when you said that_," she finally mentioned.

I wish that she hadn't decided to say that, because that was literally the _last_ thing that I wanted to hear. "See you later, Kairi," I said and pressed the 'end' button as fast as I could.

Growling I threw my stupid phone on my bed.

"Ugh, stupid!" And then I threw myself down on my bed. Was it totally unmanly that I wanted to start crying? I knew what that talk was going to be about. It was going to be the whole 'maybe-we-should-just-stay-friends' speech. Yet another reason why I hadn't wanted to tell Kairi anything about my undying love for her.

Wait, so did this mean that I had somehow known that this would happen?

Wow, I was stupider than I had thought.

With a groan I flipped myself over onto my back and glowered up at the old plastic glow in the dark stars on my ceiling from when I had been ten. They were some of the only stars that you could ever see in my house, since most of the natural stars were usually hidden by the city lights.

As I let myself fall into a frustrated, light sleep, I absentmindedly wondered if Namine had had a fun time.

* * *

**A/N: What is this? I updated twice in the same month? :O I must be sick lol. Ok so the reason this went kind of fast (Hah, a month is fast for me ;) ) is because some parts were already written before (like the beginning) and other parts I had sort of planned in my head for a while (Like the sunset Namine thing).**

**So as for Roxas and what he saw in the last chapter, don't worry because things will be cleared up in the next chapter. And the SoKai is going to have some making or breaking in the next chapter, so that will be interesting to write. X) Haha oops, spoiler! ;3**

**Ok, so that's about it! :) Thank you guys so much for reading!**

**Review? ;D**


	8. Are Still Fools

**Okey-Dokey, sorry (x10) for the super lateness of this chapter! XD Happy holidays guys! Hopefully this won't be my last update before Christmas, but don't count on anything. :\ It's insanely hard to write during the holidays...**

**So anyways, this is shorter than usual, but I felt like if I added any more to it I'd be dragging it on. So I stopped it right where it was :)**

**Enjoy! Happy holidays!**

8:…Are Still Fools

"Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship-never."  
- Charles Caleb Colton

* * *

Morning came way too early. Breakfast went by way too fast. I had to tolerate my cousin's presence for way too long. My mom wasn't out the door fast enough. It took too long to brush my teeth, but pulling on some clean clothes happened in half a second. I went down the stairs too slow. My phone rang so fast that I was scared that I was going to miss it. Was it just me, or did time suddenly decide to screw itself last night and was having, like, the worst hangover in history?

I slammed the phone to my ear a little harder than intended. "Hello?"

"_Sora, it's me."_

"Oh." My tone dropped immediately. "Hey, Kairi."

"… _Can I come over?"_

She sounded rushed and she had put on her nice voice. I ran a hand through my hair. "Listen, about last night-"

"_Can. I. Come. Over?"_ She repeated slowly, like she didn't have the energy required to talk to me.

I sighed. "That's probably not a good idea. The house is a mess and my mom's in a really bad mood today." I lied, although I didn't know why. I remembered the reason when I heard the upstairs door open and shut.

"_Oh, ok that's fine. Well, can we meet at the park or something then? I'd rather not talk at my house."_ That was because she knew and I knew that this 'talk' would most likely turn into some big dramatic thing, and she obviously didn't want her family to witness or hear anything.

"Yeah, sure."

"_Ok, I'll meet you there. Come right now, ok?"_ And then she hung up.

You know, sometimes that girl infuriated me. She really, really did. To everyone else all she did was sound nice, and look nice, and act nice. But then when she talked to me all she did was look nice and sound bossy. Except with Namine, then she would look stressed, sound worried, and act motherly. And when she was with Roxas, she was totally different again. She looked nice, but sounded unsure and acted weird. It didn't take a genius to figure out what her angle was. Out of the three, scored highest to lowest on her importance scale, I could see my name scribbled in at the bottom.

With a grunt I shoved my phone into my pocket and trudged upstairs to grab my shoes. Roxas' door was halfway open.

Falling to the ground, I searched under my bed for those stupid sneakers that I always wore. It was pretty amazing how they'd get lost overnight.

Finally I found the little suckers and shoved them on my feet. Swinging my door open I left my room and started down the stairs. But I stopped.

Roxas was on the phone or something. Either that, or he was talking to himself. So he was on the phone.

"What is it?"

I don't know why, but I stopped in front of his door to listen.

"No, I mean… Whatever. It's fine." He paused. "Well what do you expect? I told you from the beginning that I didn't-"

He was silent for a minute or so.

"I'm not complaining… Why did you call me?"

Who was he talking to? Whoever it was, it wouldn't have killed him to be nicer.

He was quiet for a couple of long minutes. I almost walked away but he finally said something. "…_What_? Why on earth would you marry _her_? What do you mean? Of _course_ I hate her! I don't care!" And then he just growled and threw his phone at the wall. It crashed with a loud thud. He groaned and slammed his door, not ever seeing me by the stairs. I didn't know what to say, even though there was no one to really say anything to anyways.

So instead I just ran down the stairs and towards the door as fast as I could. The sooner that I let Kairi bust my heart the sooner I could get over it- if I ever did get over it, and I was pretty sure that I wouldn't. The house phone rang but I ignored it.

"Hey, where are you going?" Roxas called down from the top of the stairs. He only sounded curious, but it still annoyed me how nosey he was being. I froze, but considered just ignoring him.

I glanced back anyway. "What's it to you?"

He looked annoyed but just shrugged. "Namine is on the phone and wants to know if we wanted to get together." He held up the house phone and gave it a little shake.

Was it weird that I got annoyed at Roxas for picking up the phone? "When?"

"Today, right now if possible."

"Not possible," I decided, turning back around. No distractions, no friends. I had to focus on my future conversation with Kairi.

"Why not?" he asked me, his ear to the phone. He looked completely disinterested.

"None of your business," I spat.

He rolled his eyes and pointed to the phone with his free hand. "She's asking, not me," he explained.

I groaned and ran a hand through my hair. "Toss it over," I demanded, and he complied. I caught the phone as he threw it down the stairs to me. Pressing it to my ear I said, "Namine?"

"_Oh, Sora? Hi, why can't you get together right now?"_ She sounded more interested than Roxas had.

"Well…I'm busy. That's all."

"_Is it about Kairi?"_ I shouldn't have been surprised that Namine probably knew at least a little bit about Kairi and me, but it still sort of annoyed me that Kairi had gone off and told people.

"Who told you that?" I asked slowly, my eyes narrowed.

"_No one. I could hear it in your voice,"_ she answered easily. I let my head and shoulders slump.

"Oh. Sorry."

She laughed. _"About what? Listen, we can just get together later, ok? I'll let you go."_

I nodded, but then realized that she couldn't see me all of the way from her house, wherever that was. "Ok, sounds great. Here's the jerk again," I said and tossed the phone back over to Roxas, who had come down into the living room and had stuck his iPod in his ears, probably to drown my voice out.

"What?" But even with his ear buds in, he still had apparently heard my _'jerk'_ remark. Oh, well. I ran through the door and collided with a wall of moisture, so I pulled up the hood on my shirt and kept going. It wasn't raining that heavily, so I didn't go back inside for an umbrella.

* * *

There she was, sitting at the end of a picnic table that was mostly sheltered from the rain by the huge trees. She was facing away from me, so she didn't see me.

I mean, how could I have been so stupid? Here I was, about to walk into a conversation with my best friend since forever that would probably change our relationship forever. Change it for the worse. Why was I allowing that to happen? Why did I have to put myself out there like that and try and get her to like me? Simple answer: because I'm stupid.

So I trudged over to her anyways, my Converse shuffling through the wet grass and sand. I considered calling out to her, but I decided against it. I didn't really want to see her face at that moment.

Without a word, I sat down at the wooden table next to her and put my elbows on the table. Her head snapped towards me.

"Sora, I didn't think that you would be here so soon," she remarked, almost disappointed. Well, that made two of us.

I shrugged, not exactly looking her in the eye. "Yeah well, I wanted to get out of the house." Immediately, I thought of my blonde cousin throwing his phone against the wall.

She nodded, but didn't say anything.

I didn't say anything, either.

"Sora," she began, but stopped. She tugged on a strand of her red hair, curling it endlessly around her finger. She sighed.

I studied the wood, which was suddenly very fascinating.

"I don't…want this to be weird anymore." She fidgeted. "I want to be able to be best friends with you again."

"We _are_ best friends."

She looked away. "But not like we used to be. Before…well, before summer."

'_Before you basically confessed your feelings to me'_ is what she had really meant. I was fed up with not telling her anything, and her not ever saying anything.

"Just say it," I muttered under my breath.

"What?"

I looked up to meet her eyes, which looked like they were bracing for something bad. Her entire face was screwed up with discomfort.

"'_Before I told you that I liked you.'_ That's what you wanted to say," I said, bolder that time.

Her breath caught. "You…never said that," she said weakly. Finally I was shutting her up. It was about time, I had to say.

"Well, I'm saying it now."

I could see her shift slightly away from me. "Sora-"

I stood up. "Kairi," I started and stepped over the seat.

"Sora, _don't_," she pleaded weakly.

"Kairi, I like you. _A lot_. As in more than a friend. Much more." I was surprised that I was actually saying this, but what the heck. Besides, I was too nervous to really register what I was doing anyway. I'd think about it later.

She hadn't gotten up from the table; she leaned her elbows on the table and covered her face with her hands. She was still facing away from me. I came up on her side and got on my knees in the wet grass. I gently grabbed her forearm and pulled her hand from her face. She still didn't look at me, and she had her eyes closed.

"Kairi, I know that you probably don't like me in the same way…" I trailed off. She still wasn't looking. "But come on, give me a chance. I'm your best friend, it's not like you don't like me at all. _Please_." She shook her head.

I was surprised how desperate I sounded.

"Sora, why did you tell me that?" she whispered, but she sounded mad. Why wouldn't she look at me?

"Because…I had to. Even if you don't return my feelings."

She suddenly yanked her hand away and stood up in one motion. Finally she looked at me, but her eyes were starting to get red and her lip quivered. That girl standing in front of me was a stranger. I'd never seen Kairi look like that before; she was completely different. She looked…like a child.

"How could you be so stupid?" she tried to yell, but it only came out a little above a whisper. "I never gave you any encouragement! I was _mean_ to you! I'm always mean to you! So why… Why do you still like me?" she rasped, and stepped away from the table.

I stood. "Because you're my best friend, Kai."

She backed up even more, and I took a step forward. "No." She ran a hand through her hair. "I don't want…" But she stopped and looked at me. She looked like she had just told me to shoot myself. Which she practically had. "I don't want to talk about this."

For some reason, I felt my anger flare up. "Oh you don't? You never want to talk about anything, do you?" I felt my tone rise. "You just want to ignore everything."

She straightened. "I don't ignore anything," she defended herself. "You said it yourself; _you knew_ _what I'd say_. Why are you mad at me for not wanting to damage our friendship further?"

"Because you just want to pretend that everything's all fine and dandy, then you can just pretend that I never said any of this." My voice turned cold. "If you want to reject me, then just do it."

She almost took a step forward, but she stayed put. "I don't want to reject you."

"Then accept me!"

"I can't do that either!" she suddenly shouted. I stared wide-eyed at her, and she looked like she wanted to cry.

She started to back up again. "Sora…I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..." She paused. "Maybe, maybe we should just take a break from each other… Give ourselves some time to think things over."

My face was expressionless. "No, it's ok. I don't have anything to think over. I know what I need to know. You do too I guess."

And then she left me with wet grass stains on my pants.

* * *

I could hear Roxas' voice coming from the kitchen when I got home. What, was he determined to eat me and my mom out of the house? The demon child was always there. Being rejected had- obviously- put a damper on my mood, and I was sort of looking for a fight.

"Hey, stop eating all of my foo_oo_..." I stopped my scolding dead in it's tracks. Roxas was there all right; he was sitting on one of the stools. But next to him was a girl who I didn't even know knew where I lived. She looked up at me in the middle of taking a bite out of an ice cream sandwich.

"Namine? What are you doing here?" I asked, dumbfounded. She had made a mess all over her mouth and hands, but looked like she had just been laughing about something. Roxas even looked to be in a bit of a better mood than usual. I immediately got suspicious. Or jealous. I mean, how dare he eat my ice cream sandwich!

"Oh, Sora!" She smiled, and her eyes danced with some sort of joke. "I didn't think I'd see you today." She was breathing deeply.

Seriously, what was up this that girl? She always seemed to show up at the weirdest moments.

I shrugged.

"Something wrong?" Her smile immediately died down, and she placed her sandwich back on the plate. I felt bad for making her stop smiling.

"Nope, everything's dandy." I forced out through clenched teeth. "Why'd you stop?" I demanded suddenly.

She exchanged a look with Roxas. "What do you mean? Stop what?"

I made a vague motion towards the two of them. "I don't know, why'd you stop talking? Why'd you stop _smiling_? Am I interrupting something?" I was surprised that my voice sounded more like a growl than usual.

Somehow I knew that I should've shut my mouth. But I didn't really care. It was easy to be mad when I was in the same room as my cousin.

"No, you didn't interrupt anything," Namine answered quietly, calmly. And it was hard to be mad when I was in the same room as her.

My eyes drifted over to the right, staring at anything but the two of them. Roxas hadn't said anything up until that point and I hadn't minded. At all. But he chose to add his two-cents in now.

"Was it Kairi?" Completely unwanted two-cents.

Namine looked at me with a slight tilt of the head and I felt my temper rise. "How did _you_ know that I was with Kairi?"

He shrugged but didn't meet my gaze. "My door was open when she called. I just figured that that's what had you in a tantrum."

"I'm not in a tantrum!" I defended myself like a little child.

"Sure," he said simply, with only a hint of sarcasm.

I balled my hands into fist. "Shut up, you don't know anything." I spat at him. His eyes shot towards mine and he gave me a hard look that said_ 'I know that you listened to my conversation, so we're even.' _The way that his bitter blue eyes looked at me under his blonde eyebrows made me want to punch him.

"Sora-"

Namine still had a bit of a mess on her face, but she had wiped most of it off. She looked sad, and took a deep breath. "Um, do you want to join us?" She took another deep breath.

"No, I don't," I said simply and shoved my hands into my pockets. Heading towards the stairs, I glanced back to see Roxas hadn't turned around to watch, but Namine had twisted in her chair to see me. She looked at me like she was sad about something. Whatever. I looked down and continued up the stairs. The last thing I wanted was pity, especially from someone who didn't even know what had happened in the first place.

I got to my room and slammed the door shut behind me.

* * *

A knock on my door made me jolt awake. I guess I had fallen asleep. Being in a bad mood was hard for me to do, but apparently I had put myself to sleep doing it. With a groan I flipped off of my stomach and onto my back. I noticed that it the sound had started going down outside. "Who is it?"

"Namine,"

Oh. I glanced at the clock on my bedside table. It was around dinner time; she must've been here for a while. "Door's open," I said, pushing myself up into a sitting position.

Namine quietly opened my door and slipped in, but left the door open. She stood awkwardly in the center of my room, taking everything in, and I realized that this was the first time that she had ever been in here. I hoped that she didn't notice the piles of underwear in the corner, or the crap on the bed, or the clothes on the floor, or the papers on the desk. Or the messiness in general. How embarrassing.

"Uh, want to sit down?" I jumped up and brushed my pile of old shirts off of my computer chair. She smiled at me as she sat down. After a second I returned her smile and sat back down on the edge of my bed, waiting for her to continue.

Neither of us said anything for a couple of long moments. I rubbed the sleepiness away from my eyes.

"I'm sorry, were you sleeping?" She asked, formal as ever.

I shook my head. "Nope, I just, uh, had an itch?" I coughed.

And then it was awkward again. Not that it had ever stopped.

"Um, I don't mean to pry, but…" She trailed off. "I got a call from Kairi today," she mentioned carefully. Her eyes were kind, but she looked worried. "She told me some of what happened."

I studied my hands and I felt my eyebrows knit together. "… Oh, great. I'm glad she's telling everyone."

She shook her head. "No, I mean she only told me. But I wanted to come back over and see how you were doing."

"You left?"

"Yeah, about an hour or so ago," she answered, and shifted in her seat.

"And you wanted to see how I was doing? Did Kairi tell you to find that out?" I wondered, but I wasn't really sure if that had come out mean or not.

"No." She sighed. "I came because I wanted to." She was so weird. I mean, she never had any trouble admitting what people asked her. Or maybe I just didn't ask her anything that she wasn't open with. But it still seemed a bit strange to me.

"Oh." I scratched the back of my neck. "Why not go see how Kairi's doing then? I mean, she's your best girl friend," I pointed out.

She looked straight at me, and I finally looked up at her. "I wanted to make sure that you were ok," she said with a hint of finality, like that was all that she was going to say about it.

"But…why?"

"Because." She paused. "You're my friend. And I always want to help you, if I can."

I processed that for a moment before I asked. "And how will checking up on me help?"

A small half-smile played on her pink lips. "I don't know. But having a friend there helps doesn't it? So me being here has to count for something."

And it was weird, because it was like she was telling me, _'I'm on your side in this, not Kairi's. I'll help you with anything,' _If that even made any sense, which it probably didn't.

But I swear she knew what she said with her eyes.

* * *

**Ok, there is is! That's a pretty important chapter, and one that sheds some light on Kairi's recent rudeness...So don't worry, she's not like a totally horrible person ;)**

** Review!**


	9. A Guy Can Wonder

HAPPY NEW YEAR! :D

**Any new year's resolutions? :) I never do that stuff because I always forget it within the week, so I figure by not making I'm just staying one step ahead of the game. ;3  
I celebrated my new year by watching two hours of performances by the same people over and over, and by eating a sweet tart as my first food of the year! :) What'd you guys do?**

**So this chapter is short again (SORRY) and it's Roxasssssssss :DDD haha sorry I just get consumed by fangirlism sometimes ;) Finally we get to some Roxiri relationship development, as well as a little (rushed) look at Kairi's real feelings about the whole "Sora situation." Sadly, Sora doesn't make an appearance. :( Sad day. But he's back to the POV character next chapter, as usual! Expect more therapy. ;)**

**If I owned Kingdom Hearts I'd be a monkey's uncle! Oh wait…**

9: A Guy Can Wonder

* * *

"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out.  
It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being.  
We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit."

-Albert Schweitzer

* * *

The weirdest thing to me were people who were completely easy to figure out, but totally confusing at the same time. There were only two people in my life like that at the moment. Kairi and Sora. They were both so weird, only in different ways, and confusing in different ways.

Sora was probably the stupidest person I knew. Maybe number two or three, but he was still pretty high on the stupid scale. His attention-span didn't go beyond ice cream and parks. But at the same time he just showed up in one of the biggest angsty fits that I had seen in a while. I didn't think that he was capable of angst. And he was even rude to Namine, which he never did. But he pretended that we couldn't see his fit, or didn't notice it. He pretended like I couldn't figure out what had put him in his hissy-fit, which had so far lasted about a month.

Kairi wasn't stupid in any way, but she was pretty much the same on the understandable level as Sora. She was bossy and hormonal and treated everyone like she was their mother. She never acted any differently, except in two situations: when she was alone with me, and when she was with Sora. When she was with me, it was like she wanted to act bossy, but she couldn't remember how. Or something, I don't know. But when she was with Sora at all, she just shut off. She didn't hardly say anything or acknowledge anything that anybody said to her. And she wouldn't look at anyone.

I just wanted to get away from these crazy people.

But still…I was interested in what had happened to Sora and Kairi, in a sort of old-woman-gossiping way. Not that I'd admit it.

"Roxas?" I jerked slightly as Namine poked me in the arm. I had almost fallen asleep leaning against the boardwalk's railing. She looked highly amused. "Were you sleeping while standing up?"

I blinked several times before rubbing my eyes and straightening. "Um…I wasn't asleep." I defended myself nonchalantly.

She laughed. "Oh, ok."

"What's so funny?" Kairi asked, coming up to the two of us with a soda in hand.

"Nothing," I replied. Her gaze flickered towards mine with an unreadable expression.

"Roxas fell asleep standing up," Naming told her with a smile.

Kairi gaze slid back towards me; she had some sort of weird smile on her face. It looked like it was torn between an _'oh that's so funny'_ smile and a forced smile. It almost looked like it hurt. "Are you that tired?" She asked jokingly. But I thought that she looked pretty tired herself.

"Are you?" It came out without thinking. I winced slightly; that probably sounded pretty stupid.

She just tilted her head slightly. "What do you mean? You don't make any sense." And with a smile she turned towards Namine and linked arms with her. "Come on, let's finish up before it starts raining." She said over her shoulder at me.

"Sure," I mumbled and stuffed my hands in my pockets. Following behind two talkative girls wasn't as hard as I had thought, they most just talked to each other. I hardly had to say anything to either of them.

"I can't believe that summer is almost over," Namine sighed. "How much longer do we have?"

Kairi answered immediately. "A week and a half."

They both looked pained. "Oh, sad day," Namine groaned quietly and pouted. She looked like a five-year-old, but in a sweet way.

"I dunno," Kairi shrugged. "It's just the same old stuff, only different. School isn't _that_ hard."

"Says the girl who makes straight A's." Namine giggled and nudged her friend in the rib.

The red head laughed before glancing back at me. "What about you, Roxas?" she asked hesitantly.

"What? I wasn't paying attention."

She gave me a weird look for a second before it smoothed itself out. "What grades do you usually get in school?" she repeated.

I shrugged, rubbing the back of my neck. "Mostly B's I guess. One or two A's, and one or two C's." I met her gaze. "So I'm just average."

She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it. She blushed and looked away abruptly. Namine pretended like she didn't see the blush, even though her eyes flickered to the pink on her cheeks. I followed her lead and ignored it too.

"Well that's better than me," the blonde said. "I make all B's and C's. I only ever make A's in unimportant things."

I gave her a small smile. "Then you're about the same as me."

Kairi snapped out of whatever thing she was in and nudged her friend back. "Namine! Art isn't meaningless. You're amazing," she firmly insisted with a smile. And there she went again, being confusing.

"You draw?" I found myself asking.

They both stopped walking and exchanged an amused look. "I thought that you would've caught onto that by now, Roxas." Kairi arched an eyebrow. "Especially how every weekend she carries around her sketchbook. And sketches things." She was making fun of me, but I couldn't help but notice: she was being nicer. Like, way nicer than usual. Maybe she was sick.

"Are you feeling ok?" I asked slowly.

She looked surprised, but slightly annoyed. "Why do you keep asking me that?" And that weird expression flickered through her eyes.

"Because you're acting weird," I said like it was obvious, and it was to me. Namine looked at me, then her.

Her eyebrows knit together for a moment. "I'm fine." She was lying, but she wasn't at the same time. How could anyone do that? "Besides," she added, a bit of her normal bossiness showing through. "How would you know if I was acting weird?"

I felt somehow trapped in that sentence. Was she trying to get me to admit to something? Or was she just asking? I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. "Because…" I trailed off, looking to at the beach in the distance. "You don't ever act like that," I finished simply.

"Oh." She sighed like she didn't believe me. Whatever; it was her that was lying, not me.

"Roxas you're so observant," Namine remarked carefully. "I didn't notice it, but I think you're right. Kairi doesn't look to good after all; I think that she might need to eat something," she concluded with a triumphant look on her face. That kind of tricky look didn't suit her; she worked it way too well. "But I'm so tired. I think I should just go on home… Maybe you could take her?" And there it was, another half lie, half truth. Girls must have had a knack for it.

"Why would I need an escort?" Kairi put a hand on her hip and arched an eyebrow. "I'm a big girl; I think I can walk myself over to the deli. Besides, I'm not even hungry."

"I wouldn't mind," I spoke up.

Both the girls stopped talking and looked at me, surprised. "Really, you wouldn't?" Namine clarified.

"Really." I shrugged.

"But I don't need you to take me." Kairi still looked slightly surprised as she stubbornly crossed her arms.

"No, I'll do it. Besides, I'm kind of hungry, anyways." I gave her a half-smirk, and it occurred to me that I was only going along with the blonde's idea to annoy Kairi.

Before the red head could add anything else, Namine piped up with a grin. "Ok, perfect! So I can go home with a smile in my heart knowing that Kairi will be well taken care of," she gushed goofily, winking at me. I couldn't decide whether to smile at her goofiness or frown at the stupidity of it.

Kairi didn't take it so well. "As if! If anyone, _you're_ the one who needs to be well taken care of! I don't need _him_ to help me do anything, and on top of that,_ I'm. Not. Hungry."_ She stomped her foot on the ground like a child, and her face was glowing with an intense blush. And there was another reference to Namine's delicacy. I thought that Kairi was rude to bring something like that up.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I scowled. "Whatever, I'm going to eat." I shoved my hands in my pockets a bit harder than I had wanted, rolled my eyes, and stomped off.

After a moment I heard Kairi sigh and call out. "Roxas, you know I didn't mean-"

"Forget it." I waved her away, annoyed at how annoyed I was.

My shoes made small scuff sounds on the wet concrete. It had rained earlier that day, and it looked like it wanted to rain again. The clouds swarmed overhead, bloating up with even more wetness ready to fall. Even the air felt stiff with water. I kept trudging along, carefully keeping my mind blank.

"Roxas, wait!"

I had to admit that I was totally shocked to stop and see Kairi jogging up to me on the other side of the side walk. She crossed the road as soon as there were no cars, and slowed to a halt when she came up to me. I felt a rain drop hit my cheek when she gave me a small, apologetic smile and fell into step beside me when I started walking again. She didn't say anything, and neither did I, but I wondered why she was following me if I was so repulsive to her.

She twirled her hair around her finger. "I wasn't trying to insult you," she started awkwardly.

"Yeah, ok."

"It's just that," she continued, "I get so mad when Namine jokes around like that."

"She means well," I mumbled grouchily.

"I know," she snapped, slightly on edge. "But she knows that… I don't like it." She shut up, suddenly self-conscious.

I gave her a look as we turned down a side street. "Why not?"

She was quiet for so long that I wondered if she was even going to answer me. "Because she's my best friend, and I tell her everything. So it's like she's making fun of me," she bit out finally.

I raised an eyebrow. "I don't get it."

"You don't have to," she decided.

My face scrunched up in confusion as I turned into a sandwich store that Sora and his mom had taken me to before. It wasn't the best, but it was one of the only places that I remembered how to get to. I held the door open for Kairi as an afterthought. Mumbling something that resembled thanks, she quickly rushed through the door.

Waiting in line, I tried to ignore Kairi as long as I could.

"So, you were actually hungry?" she asked slowly, sounding slightly surprised. What, had she expected me to be lying?

"Obviously."

She nodded and took to staring at some overly-affectionate couple snuggling in the back.

We moved up in line a bit. I followed her line of sight to the couple. "Do you know what you want?" I asked nonchalantly.

"I'm not hungry," she grumbled for the tenth time. Something in the way she said it grated on my nerves. I was offering to pay for her, and she didn't want anything? But then I remembered what she had said to Namine just ten or fifteen minutes ago.

"Fine," I grumbled and moved up to the cash register. The uninterested employee stood waiting impatiently for me to order, but right as I was about to, my eyes slid over the menu to something called the _"Hot Monster Sandwich."_

"What's that?" I pointed. The employee told me that it was the biggest item on the menu, and the most expensive. But apparently they stacked two slices of every meat on top of one another and added jalapeños and various other hot sauces to make the huge sandwich literally a spicy beast. My eyes flickered over to Kairi, who was still gazing at the couple. It was mean, sure, but I kind of felt like being a little mean. Plus I wanted to see how big that thing really was. So I ordered the Monster sandwich and one drink for myself, and headed towards a table on the opposite side of the restaurant from the gushing couple.

We sat in a considerably awkward silence. She seemed even more aware of it than me, if that was possible. My drink went untouched.

Eventually an employee brought the sandwich to us, and left without a word. The word _"sandwich"_ was an understatement. _"Big edible brick block" _was more appropriate.

"What _is_ that?" Kairi's eyes widened as she watched as I unwrapped it.

"Your lunch," I said simply. I pushed the thing in front of her with a small smirk. "Tell me if it tastes any good."

She raised an eyebrow. "Is this a joke? I'm not eating that." And she gently pushed it back towards me.

Without a word, I slid it back towards her.

"I'm serious; I'm not going to eat." She shoved it back.

"I'm serious; we're not going to leave until you eat." I shoved it back.

"I don't need you to leave." She started to stand up, but paused. I looked over my eyelashes at her, and she chewed her lip as she stared back. She looked like she wanted to say something, but couldn't decide whether or not to.

Slowly she slid back down into the chair. I had to admit that I was surprised.

"Ok, I'll eat," she gave in warily. "But _only_ if you eat half of it with me." She didn't wait for me to reply as she took the monster and started sawing it in half with a knife that came in her silverware set at the table.

I felt one side of my mouth lift into a half smile. "Ok, fine."

With a quick smile, she slid my half towards me. "You take a bite first," she commanded, sniffing her half of the Monster. "It smells spicy."

"That's because it is," I stated, and brought the Monster to my mouth to take a bite. I took a bite of the lower half of the corner because my mouth couldn't even fit over the length of it. It was only spicy after a few moments of chewing. Kairi was staring cautiously at me the whole time, as if measuring the danger to herself and her taste buds.

I took a sip of my drink to wash down the jalapeños and hot sauce and smiled haughtily. "It's fine."

She stared at me for a second longer before warily taking a small bite. After a moment her eyes grew wide and she dropped her half of the sandwich back onto the wrapping. "It's _hot_!" she gasped, fanning her mouth comically.

I couldn't help it; I laughed. "Yeah, it's called the _Hot_ Monster, so of course it's hot."

"Give me your drink!"

I snatched it up and held it close. "Not a chance. This is mine."

She was bouncing up and down in her seat. "You're horrible! You got to take a sip!"

"I paid for it."

"You paid for this _thing_, too, and you let me eat it!" she complained like a little kid. For a second she reminded me of her best friend, my annoying cousin. Only her version was somehow so much less annoying.

"So?" I chuckled. "That just means that I share too much."

She blinked at me and then burst out laughing. "Yeah _right_! You're a selfish troll! Now give me that," she grunted slightly as she leaned over the table to try and grab my drink. With a grin I successfully held the drink back even though her hands had latched onto my wrists. She was seriously going after that drink.

And suddenly I remembered the morning when I had watched her kiss my cousin in private. My ears started to burn. I was intensely aware of the skin on skin contact as her fingers were curled around my wrist. The area seemed to burn painfully. It suddenly felt inappropriate to be acting so familiar with her, regardless of who her boyfriend was. She took advantage of my hesitation and snatched the drink out of my hand, thankfully releasing her grip on my wrist. She took one long sip, her eyes still on me, and then plopped it down on the table.

"There, now I can't take another sip until you do," she decided proudly.

I managed to slowly rip my eyes away from the slight imprint on my wrist. "…What?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I just took a sip, so now I can't take another sip until you do," she repeated slowly, a small smirk still on her lips.

"No way," I responded, albeit quieter than before. "You've contaminated it."

"How have I contaminated it?" she demanded indignantly.

"I don't want Sora's spit on my straw." The words made their way past my teeth before I had even really processed their meaning. She stopped and raised both eyebrows in confusion.

"What?"

I shifted in my seat. "I mean…" Suddenly I was annoyed that she had made me uncomfortable. I sat up a little straighter. "I mean if you're going to be swapping spit with him all the time." I winced as I said it. But something about that thought made me want to be harsh.

She looked completely oblivious.

"What on _earth_ are you talking about?" she demanded.

I rolled my eyes. "You and Sora _are_ together, right?"

"No!" She bit off immediately. "No, no, _no_! Why would you say that?" She demanded.

I raised an eyebrow. "I saw you two kissing. How can you not be together?"

She had a very annoying looke on her face that said '_you're so stupid, that'd never happen in a million years'_ and then she opened her mouth and said exactly that.

"Well why not?" I demanded. I knew that I had seen them kiss. Her lying about wasn't helping her case at all, and it was making me lose some major respect for the red head. But then again, she looked like she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, so either she was better at lying than I had thought, or I was going crazy.

"Because, I-" And then she suddenly looked like she felt like crying, and I felt like a prick.

We sat there for a minute, just staring at each other. I wanted to apologize, but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to. I had to work to form the words.

"Um," I ran my hand through my hair. "Sorry."

She bit her lip and snapped her eyes shut as the tears started flowing.

"Geez, I'm sorry!" I repeated, not really knowing what to do. "I... I didn't mean to make you cry," I jumbled out frantically. She shook her head and buried her face in her hands out of embarrassment.

"No, it's not you…" She hiccupped. "I mean… It is, b-but…" She trailed off.

I sat awkwardly in my seat, unsure of what to do. "Then what is it?"

"Sora hates me."

And suddenly the whole situation seemed pretty stupid. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," she lifted her head from her hands, and her cheeks were bright pink and wet, "he told me he loved me and I rejected him, so he _hates_ me!" She dropped her head into her hands.

I looked at her in mild shock. "Are you kidding?"

She shook her head.

"My cousin has the attention span of a squirrel." I tried awkwardly to comfort her without insulting Sora _too_ much. "He'll forget all about it and you guys can hang out like nothing ever happened. I bet it won't even take a week."

She looked up again. "But…he told me that he was sick of me pretending like things never happen."

"Why?"

And so she ended up telling me everything that had happened between them over the summer, and I mean everything. Some of it didn't really seem relevant, but she seemed to simply want someone to just talk to about anything, so I listened. I vaguely wondered why she wasn't just talking to Namine about it, but she probably had. At the end of the story, the only thing that I had really gotten was that my cousin was an idiot and that Kairi didn't really know how to reject a guy gracefully. Not that I would've done any better, but still.

I ran my hand through my hair.

* * *

The ceiling was turning into my best friend. It really was. It seemed like every time I was confused or had to think something over, the only thing I knew to do was go lay down on my bed and stare at the ceiling. And that was exactly what I was doing.

Not like there was much to think about. Sora was an idiot: knew that. Kairi was over-emotional: learned that. Namine was a busy-body: would never have guessed that.

But somehow it all made for a big headache and confusion.

My phone started buzzing on my bedside table, making me jump.

Slamming my hand down on the phone, I slid it over and picked it up without moving off my back. There were only a hand-full of people who had the number to this phone, so I had a fairly good idea of who it was.

To my disappointment, I was right.

It read _"Dad"_ on the front screen.

With a grunt, I threw the phone into a pile of some dirty clothes in the corner. There was no way I was going to talk to him right now.

I turned over and clamped my eyes shut, forgetting that I still was fully clothed, and tried to clear my mind enough to get some sleep.

* * *

**Ok guys, sorry for YET ANOTHER short chapter, I have these short burst of inspiration, and so I write it out, but it always ends up going south to my north if you know what I mean, and it turns into something else that I hadn't planned on, and then I get stuck again. So it's a very long a mentally strenuous process to write these chapters right now…But at least I haven't given up, right? X) haha**

**So anyways, I haven't stated why Roxas saw Kairi and Sora smoochin', but Kairi's not lying. She really has no idea what he's talking about. So you guys figure it out. ;) haha Anyone who guesses gets a message cookie! :)**

**Also as a random reminder, Roxas is supposed to get sent back to his home town once school starts…So ya…**

**Oh AND that phone call just told you guys who Roxas had been talking to in the last chapter, yes? No?**

**REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! Thank you very much! :)**


	10. Sticks and Stones

**Can you believe that I'm still alive? Yeah, I can't either. Haha. Well my excuse this time is that my inspiration and direction almost completely left me, so I sat there with the first scene for like a whole month without anything else. And then it hit me, and I got most of my mojo back. :) I feel like I'm rushing again, though.**

**Enough of my ramblings. Enjoy! And Happy Valentine's day ;)**

10: Stick and Stones

* * *

"…Throughout history, "tender loving care" has uniformly been recognized as a valuable element in healing."  
- Larry Dossey

* * *

The greatest tragedy in the world was that day when you woke up and look at the calendar, only to see that you have one week left in your life. That's exactly the pit feeling that I got when I saw the calendar in the kitchen. I almost dropped my toast.

"What? Only one more week left of summer vacation?" The world was falling, I was sure of it.

"Don't scream Sora, it's not the end of the world." Somehow my mom kept a straight face while saying that. How could she be so insensitive?

"Mom, _Mom_, I can't believe it." I smacked my head against the calendar, but only after stuffing half of my toast in my mouth.

"Don't hit your head against the wall." And that's all she said as she finished up washing some bowls. The doorbell rang and drying her hands, she left the room to go open it.

Sighing, I dragged myself onto one of the stools and continued to munch on my toast. How could my summer have gone by that quickly? I know I didn't waste it; I spent the whole time…I couldn't even remember half of it. But I had to look at the Brightside.

"Geez, do you always have to yell?" the spawn complained with a stupid look on his face. He got himself a bowl of cereal and sat down on the stool as far away from mine as possible.

Hello, Brightside. It made me smile to think that that guy was leaving in a week. At least I had that.

"Hey guys," A cutesy blonde voice bounced from the left over to us. Namine gave a small wave as she walked over to us. Roxas gave a small wave back and I shot her as big a grin as I could.

"Hey."

"Hiya Nam." I liked that nickname, it sort of reminded me of 'num num', like when you ate something yummy. "I like your hair."

She slowly reached up to touch her hair, which was up in a loose ponytail with a strawberry scrunchy. "Oh, really? Kairi gave me the scrunchy," she mentioned, and her eyes immediately flickered up towards mine, as if she was sorry that she had mentioned her. Roxas shifted in his seat. I kept up my smile.

"Yeah, she never really liked strawberries." I laughed. "I think she's crazy."

She stared at me as if she was trying to figure out how ok I really was and how much I was lying about it. Her hand was still on her hair for a few more seconds before she dropped it to her side. "Yeah, crazy." She smiled.

Roxas slid out of his seat and picked up his bowl. Heading towards the sink, he turned on the water and started washing out his bowl. Namine and I both followed him with our eyes, as if we were waiting for him to say something. But I don't know why, because there was literally nothing that he could say that would interest me too much.

"Roxas," Namine started timidly. "Are you…blushing?" she whispered the last word.

He paused. Our reaction was simultaneous.

"Why would I be blushing?"

"Why would he be blushing?"

He spun around and our eyes made contact for a split second before his darted back over to Namine. He didn't look like he was blushing, but his ears did look a _little_ pink. Besides, why would he be blushing anyways? Namine was going crazy.

She smiled and gave a shrug. "I don't know, it just looked like you were blushing for a second."

"Why would you blush?" I probed eagerly.

"I w_asn't _blushing," he bit back at me, sending me a death glare. Well geez.

"Sorry," Namine gave him a nervous grin, "if I embarrassed you, Roxas."

"Oh. Uh, it's ok." He rubbed the back of his neck and gave her an awkward half-smile.

I raised an eyebrow as I licked the crumbs off of my fingers.

…

The weather had perfect timing, I'm telling you. It was pouring down rain, and it didn't look like it wanted to stop anytime soon. I, for one, was enjoying the amazing weather. But I was pretty sure that no one else shared the feeling.

"Will this rain ever end?" So actually I was wrong. It was just my annoying cousin. He couldn't stop me from jumping in the puddles, though. And I might've jumped in one or two close enough to him that it got his shoes and legs wet. It was all on accident, I swear!

"Ah!" Namine shouted as she jumped in a puddle that was a little deeper than she had thought. The water splashed all of the way up to her thigh.

"Nice going Nam, you found the jackpot!" I shouted, and then jumped so close next to her that we both went crashing onto the sidewalk. Oops.

She rolled over under me in giggles. I hastily pushed myself up on my hands, which had sort of stopped me from falling all of the way on top of her. I scrambled off in a hurry and just sat on the sidewalk, watching her push herself up as well.

"Namine, are you ok?" Roxas jogged up to us with a slightly worried expression on his face.

"Well _thank you_ for your concern. I thought that I was going to die, but the fact that you care so much about me made me want to live on!" I answered in her place, gripping my chest as if he had moved my very soul. My hand hurt to grip my shirt.

He ignored me. "You're hurt." He kneeled down and pointed out her elbows, which had blood running down them. A drop of blood had stained the edge of her blue shirt.

She stopped laughing but still smiled. "Oh, it's nothing."

I felt myself frown as I got that guilty feeling. "Geez, I didn't mean to knock you down…" I rubbed the back of my head and looked down. Pain prickled my hand and I pulled it away and looked at both of them. Oh how lovely, I had torn up my hands almost as bad at her elbows.

"It's nothing," she repeated, gazing at me as if she really meant it.

"Come on." Roxas stood up in a flash and held out a hand to help her up.

"Thank you." She grinned and took his hand. I helped myself up.

"Sora, you idiot, watch where you're going next time." My cousin rolled his eyes and shot me a glare as I stood up. Namine sighed, bending down to un-plaster her soaked shirt from her legs.

"I told you, its _fine,_" she repeated.

I really wanted to say sorry about fifty more times, but something in her tone made it clear that she'd end up slapping me or something. Who knows, women are vicious. I tried to resist the urge to pull on my ear. I ended up doing it anyway.

Roxas' eyes flickered over in the distance once, and then looked back at Namine for a second. It was weird, and as I noticed that as his eyes slowly traveled back to whatever he had seen, they stayed there. What, had he seen a squirrel or something?

"Sora!" Namine exclaimed, stopping my head mid swivel. Or whatever it's called when you turn your head. "Your hands."

"What about them?"

She grabbed my right forearm with both of her hands and lifted it up so that she could see my palm. "You hurt yourself, too." She pouted a bit, as if she had done it.

Was she for real? I let my mouth widen into a grin and gave a short laugh. "Relax, Nam. It's just some blood." It's not like I was gunna die, or anything…I wasn't, was I?

I felt her grip tighten for just a second before she let go and let her hands fall to her sides. "Come on, we've got to go and get you cleaned up," she said with a smile.

You know, I was beginning to think that that smile wasn't really a smile. If that made any sense.

I looked down at my hand. "But, it's not dirty."

She rolled her eyes and laughed. "It will be if you don't clean it. I can see you have gravel stuck in there already," she pointed out.

I did? "I do?" Sure enough, little tiny pebbles had lodged themselves in my skin. I made a face. "Gross."

"Ok then, let's go home." She decided with a nod and spun around. Her wet ponytail sent droplets of water slapping my face. I had forgotten that it was still raining. "Where's Roxas?" She asked suddenly, looking left and right. Neither one of us had noticed that he had apparently left during our conversation.

I shrugged, vaguely looking around. "I dunno. He must've gone back home or something."

"Without telling us?"

"Well I don't know where else he could be." I mumbled.

There was a flash of blonde and we could see Roxas off in the distance, standing by the corner of a building, talking to somebody. Or at least, I assumed he was because otherwise he'd just be standing there like a creeper. Well, he w_as_ a creeper, but not that much of one.

"Oi! Roxas!" I called impatiently, waving my arm at him.

Either he was ignoring me, or he didn't see me, but he didn't turn until the two of us got closer and I called out again. His head spun back towards us, and I could see a deep frown on his face. The person he was talking to was short, so their umbrella covered their face. They must've said something because he looked back at them and nodded once, turning back around toward us as the person disappeared around the corner. With his hands in his pockets, he walked up to us.

"We're leaving." Namine said, curiosity burning in her voice. Well it was burning all throughout my head, too. I couldn't hold it in.

"Who was that?" I blurted out, trying to see around him.

He shrugged. "None of your business."

"Um, ok. Let's go." Namine gave us both a strange smile, and all three of us started back towards my house.

* * *

I was thankful that my mom wasn't home, because she'd probably yell at me again that the three of us were dripping water all throughout her house. Which we pretty much were. Namine headed straight for the sink, wringing out her hair and shirt and letting the water fall down the drain. She waved us both over and told us to give her our shirts.

"uh, WHAT?" I cried, hugging myself as if she could magically yank off my shirt. "No way!"

Even Roxas looked skeptical. "It's ok, we can just-"

She shook her head. "Oh, you two. Stop being little girls and hand them over. It's ok, just think of me like your mother." She grinned at us. Ugh great, like I needed _another_ girl who thought that she was my mom.

Roxas raised an eyebrow but shed his short-sleeved jacket and started taking off his black shirt underneath.

"Dude, stop stripping!" I yelled, still gripping my shirt despite the burning that I was feeling in my hands.

"Stop being a baby." He replied, pulling his shirt over his blonde hair and tossing it to Namine. "I'm going to get changed." He mentioned, and then started to make his way up the stairs. He skipped every other step, I assume so that he wouldn't drip so much water. What a kiss up, that guy. It made me sick.

It also made me sick that he obviously worked out more than me. Not that I didn't work out! It's just that…his abs looked slightly more…ab-ish. Slightly.

Namine glanced back at me as she started to wring out Roxas' shirt and jacket. "Well?" I swear she was trying to humiliate me on purpose.

I stared at the back of her head for a second before groaning. "Ugh, fine." Quickly I jerked my navy blue button-down shirt up over my head. I forgot that it was a button-down, but it didn't get stuck on my head since I never buttoned those things up all of the way. Nope, it was my white t-shirt that got stuck. "Um…Help?"

All I could see was my shirt, but I heard a small giggle. "Wow, Sora."

"Just yank it off before I die!" I cried, thankful that she couldn't see the growing blush on my cheeks. Because I was sure that I was blushing. What if she thought I looked flabby? I couldn't have a girl think that I didn't work out or anything!

"Ok, hold on." And a second later she had grabbed my shirt – and a fist full of my hair – and gave a swift tug.

"_Ow_!" I yelped.

She immediately let go, sending me bumping against the fridge from the momentum. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to stretch your neck or anything!" She frantically apologized.

Shaking my head of the pain, I let out a loud laugh. "_'Stretch my neck'_? That's not possible!" I said between bursts of laughter. "You yanked on my hair!"

She was silent for a moment and I thought that I had embarrassed her, and then she slapped my bare shoulder. "Shut up, it's the first thing I thought of!" She joined me in laughing. The two of us stood there laughing, looking like a total idiot. Ok, I was the only one who looked like an idiot. I didn't have a shirt over my head after all. I have no clue if she looked stupid, but I was pretty sure that she didn't.

After a minute to compose ourselves, she tried to yank off my shirt again, this time being more careful not to rip our half of my hair.

"There!" She said contently, going back over to the sink to wring the water out of my shirts. Roxas came back fully clothed, his socks pounding lightly on the wood as he went down the stairs.

Namine glanced back at him. "Oh hey, Roxas, can you do me a favor?"

"Sure." He nodded.

"Can you please go find some disinfectant for our scrapes?" She asked.

"Sure." He said again and went off towards the laundry room, where I guess we kept the medicine and stuff like that.

While she wrung the clothes out, I tried my best not to constantly blush at the fact that I was shirtless before a girl. I mean, I guess it wasn't _that_ big of a deal I guess, but somehow, it was.

I started picking at the gravel in my palm. What if my skin grew over it and I was stuck with cement for the rest of my life? That was a scary thought, so I ignored the zapping pain as I picked at the tiny pebbles.

"Sora," Out of nowhere, Namine slapped the hand away that was picking at the rocks. "I'll help you with that, so stop picking at it."

I frowned. "But what if it gets stuck?"

Her worried looked softened into a slightly amused one. "It won't." She promised, and Roxas came back with everything that she needed to clean our wounds.

"Ok, sit down Sora." She directed me to the kitchen stools. I did as I was told, and held out my hands for her to help me patch them up. But of course, my annoying cousin interrupted.

"Why don't I do that?" He offered.

"I don't mind." She said.

"Yeah, but you're hurt, too. So let me do it." He reasoned. I almost thought that Namine would get mad at him saying something like that, but she didn't. She simply nodded and moved aside for him to take the seat next to me. I guess I had forgotten that she wasn't like Kairi for a second.

But the thought of my cousin – who hated me – patching me up tore my thoughts away from the girls. The idea was obviously bad, and for obvious reasons, too. There was no way that I was about to let him tear out a bunch of concrete and then pour some horrible burning disinfectant all over my hands. No way.

Of course, had grabbed my hand in a vice grip and proceeded to pull out all of the gravel with the delicacy of a vengeful ex-girlfriend.

"Hey! Ow!" I yelped, trying to yank my hand away again. "Geez, be gentle!" I complained. He just rolled his eyes, told me to shut up, and kept on going.

After the gravel was all gone, he went on to pour some sort of devilish liquid all over my hand. It all seemed to fizz up and it burned like fire.

"Ahh! That hurts!"

"Stop being such a baby." He commanded, and Namine sent me a pitying look.

"Ok there, one hand's done." Roxas let go of my hand and grabbed the other one before I had time to run away. Darn it, how was he faster than me? "Hold still and it'll go faster." He offered, but his tone was annoyed.

"At least your cuts won't get infected." Namine added.

So after another round of _'kill Sora's hand as painfully as you can'_, Roxas finished and I bolted from the seat before the words "You're done" had even thought to leave his mouth.

"Ok, your turn." Roxas addressed Namine. Nodding, she climbed into the seat that I had vacated and held out her left elbow. My cousin repeated the cleaning process, and I noticed that he was being gentler with Namine's elbows than he had been with my hands. Figures, the jerk.

"Sora, here, let me wrap up your hands." She offered when her elbows were patched up as well.

I shrugged. "But it's fine…"

"It'll get infected if you leave it open so soon." She pointed out. Well, gangrene wasn't exactly on my list of top things to do, so I let her wrap some white bandages around my hands and then tape the end. "There you go, good as new." She smiled. Remind me again why it wasn't her that had cleaned my hands up in the first place? She seemed to be just fine, besides the large bandages tapped to the back of both her elbows.

"Yep," I returned her smile with a grin. "Good enough to go puddle jumping!"

* * *

Mondays were always good days to go shopping. I knew that only because that's just what Kairi had always done every Monday of every week of the year. So seeing as that day was a Monday, I assumed that it was safe to go to Kairi's house. Not that I was avoiding her, or anything. I just…wanted to talk to Xion.

"Hey Sora. Kairi's not here right now, she's out shopping." Kairi's mom said after she answered the door.

"Oh, that's ok. I actually came to hang out with Xion for a bit, if that's ok." I tried to be polite.

She looked mildly surprised. "Sure, Honey. She's up in her room." She let me in and shut the door before walking off into her kitchen.

Xion's room was a place that I had only been in once or twice before. She obviously didn't care enough to paint her walls, which were white, but almost every inch was covered in various posters for some sort of random bands. Her bed had blue and black checkered sheets and all of the furniture in the room were either black or had been painted black. There were blue pillows everywhere. I honestly had always thought that she would've had a more…girly room.

Xion herself was seated in the middle of her bed with school work and notebooks scattered all around her. It was a sickening sight, really.

"Hey Xion," I said as I came in her room, but didn't bother to knock.

She glanced up, sort of surprised but not really, and then focused back on whatever she had been doing. "Hey, what's up?"

I sighed and plopped myself down on a bunch of her pillows. After situating myself for a minute or two, I said, "Well, You know about Kairi right?"

"By that do you mean I know that you two had a falling out? Yeah, I know." She kept on scribbling notes.

I sighed again. "Is she still mad?"

"Mad? No, I don't think so."

"Is she…sad?"

"Maybe, I mean you two _are_ best friends."

I stuffed another pillow behind me. "Then how _is_ she doing?"

Finally, she stopped scribbling and brought her pencil up to her chin, looking up in thought. "You know…I don't know. I think she's…scared, maybe." She shrugged.

Both of my eyebrows shot up. "Why should she be scared? It's not like I'm going to beat her, or anything!" I mean geez, what kind of guy did that girl think I was? That was insulting, seriously.

"Listen, like I know what goes on in my sister's head. Beats me what she's thinking, but I do think that she's scared that you two will, oh I don't know…Lose your friendship or something." She looked me in the eye. "Confessing can do that to a relationship." Oh great. So she thought that had been stupid of me to do. Well, you know, that made both of us. Join the club.

"Yeah, I _know_," I sighed irritably, running my bandaged hand through my hair. "But it's not like _I'm _avoiding _her_. _She's_ the one avoiding _me._"

She let out a short laugh. "News flash you're _both_ avoiding each other." She pointed her pencil at me for emphasis.

I pursed my lips and crossed my arms. "Pretty sure that she's avoiding me, actually."

"Whatever you say. But the one who's going to have to repair this relationship is you."

"Wha? Why do _I_ have to do it?" I jabbed my thumb at my chest. "I mean she's the one who freaked out on me about it!"

She rolled her eyes. "So show her that you're ok with just being friends, if nothing else. I can guarantee you that she thinks that you'll try and kiss her if she talks to you. First, well, don't do that. But you have to let her know that you can move on. Then things can get back to what they were," And then she added under her breath, "Somewhat."

"Somewhat?" I groaned and slid even further down into her pillows. How depressing. Way to go, Sora, you've managed to alienate your best friend for probably the rest of your life. I hope I'm happy…I'm not.

She sighed but said nothing, leaning her elbow on her knee and her cheek on her fist. "Sora," She began. "Sometimes when one door closes, another opens, you know? This isn't the end of the world, and it'll pass eventually. You just have to be patient and take it slow. And take this time to actually make other friends."

"I have other friends!"

"But not _good_ friend, you know?" She shrugged again. "Look, I'm just saying. Cheer up; you've always got Riku, right?"

Not exactly the best words of comfort. Like, at all. I didn't want _Riku_, I wanted to be Kairi's friend again! I'd settle for that, seriously. Just not this…Weirdness. Ugh. I raked my hands through my hair.

"Gee, thanks." I sighed, pushing myself slowly up to my feet. I could see that this would get me nowhere. "Well, I guess I'll just leave you to your…school work." I shuddered at the thought. Though really, who did school over summer? Crazy people, that's who. I wondered why I always came to crazy people for advice. Hmm.

She smiled a thin smile, as if it was work to seem amused by the thought of school. "Ok, Sora. Oh, wait! What happened to your hands, by the way?" She asked last second. I stopped and brought them up so she could see.

"I fell." I laughed. "Pretty stupid, I know. But Namine patched me up good as new."

"Namine did?"

I nodded. "Yep. Well, Roxas cleaned it, but I swear he was trying to kill me. Namine wrapped them up." I flexed my fingers a couple of times before shrugging and dropping them. "But she didn't try and kill me, so I'll give her the credit." I smiled goofily.

She tilted her head for a second, but slowly returned the grin. "See? You've got other friends." She said with a weird tone.

"I know, I told you that already." I said, giving her a sloppy wave. "See you Xi-xi." I opened her door.

"Don't call me that!" She called right before I shut it behind me.

* * *

**Apparently my Sora likes giving people nicknames, haha.**

**So a little bit of fan service here, right? ;) I swear I didn't mean to.**

**I'm at a bit of a crossroads here, trying to decide which direction that I wanna take Roxas' and Kairi's relationship, but I can't decide. And as usual it's holding up my inspiration. So if you guys have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them! :) If not, I guess I'll just have to push through…all by myself…with no inspiration…at all… ;3**

**REVIEW PLEASE!**


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